35% investment required for 9% growth: Nath

India needs an investment equivalent to 35.1 per cent of its GDP to maintain a growth rate of 9 per cent over the next five years starting this fiscal, commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said on Tuesday.

"To achieve a growth rate of 9 per cent per annum over the next five years starting 2007-08, we need an investment rate of 35.1 per cent of GDP," he said during the third India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Industrial Forum here.

Nath said the resources for these investments are expected to come from both home as well as abroad. "While FDI equity flows were USD 5.5 billion in 2005-06, it increased almost three times to USD 15.7 billion in 2006-07. We have set a target of USD 30 billion in 2007-08," he said.

The minister also said that the government was in the process of negotiating a free trade agreement with GCC and expects that the talks would conclude successfully very soon.