India can grow at 8.5% in 2 years: Montek

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia Thursday said there is no reason why India, despite the current global financial turmoil, could not get back to earlier high growth path if it can step up domestic investment demands.

"In India's case we are not going to get back (this year) to the 9 per cent growth rate witnessed in the previous four years. We have slowed down to 6.7 per cent, but in the next two years we hope to get back to 8-8.5 per cent growth rate, he told rediff.com in a brief interview on the sidelines of a reception at the Indian Consulate in New York.

"To some extent I think India has been less affected than many other countries simply because its growth strategy did not depend as much as other's did on high growth of exports. Of course, we need to emphasize exports and we will continue as the world gets back to normal to want to have healthier export growths, but its relative importance was less than other countries," he said.

However, he admitted that India suffers from an infrastructure deficit, something that hinders foreign investments that in turn affects growth and development.