New Delhi: Prioritising the need to open up economy further, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on November 8 said the Centre will step up on reforms to attract more investment and fill up infrastructure deficit, even as he asserted there is a “great amount of impatience” on the growth front.
Speaking at the India-UK Tech Summit here, he said unlike developing economies, voices seeking protectionism are almost absent as the economy expands.
“I think one of the great strengths of the Indian economy is that even though we are growing at the fastest rate than any major economy, but by our own standard we are still not satisfied. There is a great amount of impatience in India and a far greater amount of realisation that we can grow even faster,” he said.
Seven decades after independence, India’s voice is increasingly getting noticed in the world, he said.
“Therefore to reform more, to open more, to attract more investment, to expand more in manufacturing, (we need) to fill up the infrastructure deficit faster than what we have been doing,” he said.
As the USD 2.2 trillion Indian economy expands, it is “least influenced” by voices of protectionism, he said.
“Normally it is the least developed and developing economies which have a tendency to cry for protectionism and that is a voice that’s almost not heard in India,” the FM said.
“We are looking to open out and that’s the being the direction of our economy,” he added.
Jaitley said many opportunities have been wasted in past and an aspirational nation doesn’t want to let go off any now.
“If we look at the areas where we have growth potential I think one obvious area is manufacturing. The share of manufacturing has to increase from the present 15 per cent to 25 per cent level and that’s where we will realise we are creating far more jobs and expanding far better,” he said.
Also, there is a huge potential to grow in the eastern India and rural areas have a deficit and offer a tremendous potential to invest, he said.
The Finance Minister further said that after deciding to quit the European Union, Britain is looking outside Europe and sees countries like India as one of its great future partners in trade and business.
PTI