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Summary
India's finance minister targeted a return to 9.0 percent economic growth at the earliest in a budget speech that suggested the country had seen off the worst of the global financial crisis. The first challenge is to lead the economy back to the high growth rate of 9.0 percent per annum at the earliest, Pranab Mukherjee told parliament as he presented the 2009-10 budget. India's economy grew by 6.7 percent in the year ended March 31 -- the slowest rate since 2003 and down from nine percent a year earlier, as the effects of the global economic downturn hit home. The minister warned that the push for a return to higher growth would have to be balanced against the need for financial austerity. India's fiscal deficit ballooned to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product for the fiscal year to March 2009 -- more than double the government's target of 2.5 percent and the highest in nearly two decades. Analysing the impact of the global economic crisis on India, Mukherjee said he believed that the two worst quarters are behind us. But we cannot afford to drop our guard, he added.
