Over 8% growth rate 'imminently doable' for 10 yrs: CEA

The Indian economy can register a growth rate of more than 8 percent for the next 10 years, if global economic environment turns supportive, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian said today.

"We are already growing at 7 percent plus, so I think that 8 to 8 per cent plus growth for the next 10 years is imminently doable, if the international economic environment cooperates," Subramanian said at the launch of a book 'India's Long Road: The Search for Prosperity' by Vijay Joshi, Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford University.

The CEA further said, "Even when we were growing at 9 per cent, our exports were growing at around 24 percent." Subramanian, who served as the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that it is difficult for India to implement 'big bang' economic reform when the country is not facing any serious economic crisis and when power is totally dispersed.

He noted that India has grown at an average of 6.5 percent in the last 35 years.

Noting that more and more good governance works are getting rewarded in assembly elections in India, Subramanian said our higher level of political institutions should sustain higher level of growth.

The Indian economy grew 7.6 percent last fiscal.