Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is optimistic that India can achieve a growth rate of over 7.5 percent on the basis of economic reforms it has lined up for implementation.
"Because a series of reform fixes which are in the pipeline and are to be implemented, we have now identified all the problem areas, and I think one by one as we go resolving most of them, hopefully we should reach what our destination targets are," Jaitley said during a discussion with Timothy Geithner, president of investment firm Warburg Pincus and a former US Treasury Secretary in New York on Thursday, 18 June, reports Reuters.
A key legislation is the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, which is yet to be passed by the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and has been referred to a select committee for discussion. Jaitley said the committee is likely to approve it, given the broad consensus in the committee in favour of the legislation.
Recently, the World Bank released a report which said that for the first time, India will lead the Bank's growth chart of major economies with its projected 7.5 percent growth rate for 2015.
This, even as developing countries are estimated to grow by 4.4 percent this year, according to the World Bank's revised figures.
In 2014-15, India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth increased to 7.3 percent from 6.9 percent recorded in 2013-14. The government expects the economy to grow by 8.1-8.5 percent in 2015-16.
American investors, who remain "overweight" on India, complain that they haven't observed any change on the ground even after the Narendra Modi-led government completed one year in power, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) had said in a report in May.
Admitting the hurdles in expediting reforms to boost infrastructure spending and restructure tax policies, Jaitley said that the government is taking steps to address the issues.
