India should focus on trade liberalisation: IMF

India should give greater priority to markets and trade liberalisation than to capital market liberalisation, a top official of the International Monetary Fund has said.

"There is tremendous scope for India to liberalise its markets and trade and, after it has made significant advances in these areas, to think further about capital market liberalisation," Ken Rogoff, the International Monetary Fund's Economic Counsellor said in an interview to IMF Survey.

Rogoff, also director of IMF's research department, pointed out that what was suitable for China was not necessarily appropriate for India.

China accounts for five per cent of world trade at the moment, he said while adding that India still hovers at only 0.5 per cent.

The Chinese economy was more integrated with the global economy, and through its recent commitments to the World Trade Organisation, it will face many economic pressures to gradually liberalise its capital markets further, Roggof added.

"India," he said, "is another matter."