India impacted by global recession, will emerge from it, says Rajnath Singh

Rajnath Singh outlined the major measures and initiatives taken by the Modi government to provide basic needs to people of India, including providing homes, building toilets to end open defecation, electricity, cooking gas and focusing on infrastructure development.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that India is impacted to some extent by the global economic slowdown but expressed confidence that the country will come out of the difficult situation within a short time.

Singh, who arrived in the US on Monday for the 2019 US-India 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in Washington DC, addressed members of the Indian community at educational organisation Asia Society at an event organised by the Consulate General of India.

He said currently the world over, there is a talk of a global economic slowdown.

"I also accept that there is global economic slowdown and India is also impacted by it to some extent.

"But I can say with full confidence that India will come out of this difficult situation in only few months' time," Singh said.

Singh said this was not a matter of big concern for India because the government has taken several major steps and announced economic packages to boost growth.

"We can face and tackle the global economic slowdown only by increasing consumer demand," he said, adding that the government has taken several structural and procedural reforms whose impact is now visible.

"Despite the global economic recession, India has not been impacted because as compared to other countries, India's consumer demand is comparatively better. We will definitely come out of this difficult situation," he said.

India's GDP growth slowed for the sixth consecutive quarter in the July-September quarter to 4.5 per cent as manufacturing slumped on low domestic consumption.

Singh further said that this is not the first time that India is getting affected by the global economic slowdown.

During the Congress government, Manmohan Singh was the prime minister, and then also India was impacted by the global economic slowdown, as well as during former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's time.

He stressed that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a decisive government and no one can put a question mark on the PM's decisiveness.

Singh outlined the major measures and initiatives taken by the Modi government to provide basic needs to people of India, including providing homes, building toilets to end open defecation, electricity, cooking gas and focusing on infrastructure development.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will host Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and Singh on December 18 for the second 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue.

Photograph: Jitendra Prakash/Reuters