Govt to continue reforms for higher growth - Mukherjee

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The government will continue reforms to get back to a higher growth trajectory of at least 9 percent at the earliest and encourage state-run firms to sell stakes through public offerings, the finance minister said.

Asia's third largest economy was hit hard by the global crisis and expanded by 6.7 percent in 2008/09 (April-March), its slowest pace in six years and much lower than growth rates of 9 percent or more recorded in the previous three fiscal years.

A government survey last month said India needed to make sweeping reforms including removal of fuel subsidies, and speed up infrastructure development to attain 7 percent growth in 2009/10 (April/March).

"...it should be clear that the process of economic reforms that began in the early 1990s will continue in right earnest so that the economy is back on the path of 9 percent plus growth at the earliest," Pranab Mukherjee told industrialists on Monday.

A copy of his speech was released on Tuesday by the finance ministry on its website: here

An economic adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it was vital that the pace of economic reforms stepped up.

"We don't have that much policy room either on the fiscal or on the monetary policy for further accommodation than where we are," Raghuram Rajan told reporters.

"So it seems to me that we should pick up the pace of economic reforms because reforms can help to pick up growth," he said. "That's why I say there is even more urgency to do that now."