No need to panic over slowdown as fundamentals are strong: FM

New Delhi: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said economic slowdown is a matter of concern but there is no need for panic, and reverting to high growth path is achievable as India’s fundamentals are strong.

“Though it is a matter of great concern that there is a slowdown in the GDP growth rate besides having higher current account and fiscal deficit, there is no need to press the panic button,” an official statement quoted Mukherjee as saying.

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Stressing that fundamentals of the economy are strong, the Minister said he is “fully confident that the objective of taking the economy back to the path of higher growth, maintaining moderate rate of inflation, narrowing down the gap of current account deficit and restricting the fiscal deficit to 2 percent of GDP are very much achievable”.

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At a time when the country is facing various challenges in the wake of continued global uncertainty particularly the eurozone crisis, Mukherjee said he has full faith in the resilience of the Indian economy to overcome successfully such challenges.

After registering 8.4 percent growth during 2009-10 and 2010-11, India’s GDP expansion slowed to nine-year low of 6.5 percent in the last financial year.

The Finance Minister was addressing a conference of Chairpersons of Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunals (DRATs) and Presiding Officers of Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs) here.

In financial crisis, he said, role of DRTs is more important in helping out banks to deal with the mounting NPAs as they are the part of mechanism for recovery of loss assets.

PTI