Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an outlay of over USD one trillion was envisaged for infrastructure projects during the next 5-year plan beginning 2012 and invited Japanese firms to play a greater role in this endeavour, observing that infrastructure deficit was posing a major constraint to India’s growth.

Dr. Singh said that with the aim of unifying indirect taxes into a single Goods and Services Tax in due course, his government was determined to continue the economic reforms to create a favourable investment environment and facilitate higher capital inflows and pushes the reforms of both direct and indirect taxes.

Dr. Singh pointed out that India’s growth fell to 6.5 per cent in 2008-09 due to global economic recession, then it recovered to 7.4 per cent in 2009-10 and it is projected to be 8.5 per cent in 2010-11, Singh was addressing a business luncheon attended by top business leaders from India and Japan. He was very hopeful that India will return to the growth of 9 per cent in 2011- 12.

Dr. Singh said, “I am confident that strong fundamentals of the Indian economy will enable us to achieve our objective of double-digit growth in the coming decades”. He emphasised that we need to close the infrastructure deficit, especially in the power, communication and transport sectors. He said, “This is a major constraint on our development and we will give high priority to infrastructure development in the years ahead”.

He further added that in the next five-year plan from 2012 to 2017 “ we have a potential to envisage financial outlays of over one trillion US dollars on the infrastructure projects alone”. Dr. Singh said, private investment will play a large role in achieving this target, while asking Japanese companies to play an important role in development of India’s economy.

Dr Singh said, private investment will play a large role in achieving this target, while addressing a meet he said Japanese companies can play a greater role in the development of India’s economy.  From India the industrialists who were present at luncheon were HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, Fortis Chairman Malvinder Singh, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti CMD and Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director.