Moody's forecast cause of concern: PM
"To believe that our investment is very high and that the fundamentals of Indian economy are strong, I think the prime minister, who hold the pivotal position in government, is living in denial," Jaitley said.
"Most agency world over, most economist world over, chambers, independent observers, domestic economists without exception are commenting very adversely against the UPA's management on nation economies," he added. "The sentiments is low, the investment environment has been seriously affected. India is no longer been showcased as the investment destination. Infrastructure management is going slow."
"And at this state of affairs, where inflation are high, the international oil prices are high, the monsoons don't look like being particularly encouraging, I think the prime minister should have responded to the wake up call," he said.
From time to time even the global rating agency caution the
government but Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the downgrade of India's growth forecast
by Moody's was a cause of concern but expressed hoped that India would
better last year's 6.5 per cent economic growth.
"It
is a cause of concern but one should not draw unwarranted conclusions,"
Dr. Singh told reporters when asked to comment on ratings agency
Moody's analysis of the Indian economy.
Moody's
research arm had scaled down its forecast for the country's economic
growth this fiscal to 5.5 per cent earlier this week.
However, Dr. Singh expressed hoped that India would better last year's 6.5 per cent of economic growth.
"The
fundamentals of Indian economy are strong. Investments and savings are
among the highest in the world. I am hopeful, we will do still better
than 6.5 per cent growth performance of last year," the Prime Minister
said.
Moody's
Analytics had said India's GDP growth rate is likely to be 5.5 per cent
this year, while in 2013 growth is expected to be 6 per cent, adjusted
from 6.2 per cent earlier.
"There
has been little policy response from either the Reserve Bank of India
or the government and with global uncertainty dragging on, we see
nothing on the horizon to lift the economy from its funk," Moody's
Analytics Senior Economist Glenn Levine had said.