"Even if the economy grows at 8 per cent in the current fiscal, the overall growth target of 9 per cent in the next five years is not unreasonable," he said. Ahluwalia said this at the sideline of an Assocham event in New Delhi today.
He, however, warned of a slow down for 2008-09. He said that various studies have projected a growth rate of eight to 8.5 per cent for 2008-09. "We should be ready to accept the growth at the lower end of range," he said.
While the next year's slow had been factored, Ahluwalia expressed confidence that the GDP growth rate for the year 2007-08, would be revised upwards from the advance estimate of 8.7 per cent. The reason for this optimism for the current fiscal, according to him was that the final estimate of agricultural production is expected to be higher than the projected advance estimate for 2007-08.
