“India’s economic slowdown, to an average of 7.5 per cent in 2008-09, represents a moderation to a healthier, more sustainable rate of growth,” said EIU senior economist and Asia editor Anjalika Bardalai.

She, however, added that as one of the least trade dependent economies in the region, India could expect to remain relatively insulated from the effects of a US-led global slowdown. Moreover, high business confidence coupled with public and private consumption would ensure that India’s growth rate remain the third fastest in Asia in the medium-term. She articulated that she didn’t expect India’s growth story to be derailed, but only to be depressed. Among the most important challenges facing the country is inflationary pressures stoked by high food and fuel prices.

Also, she adjudged India to be better placed to exploit the regional dynamics arising out of high growth rates experienced in the region. “India, apart from Vietnam, is well-placed to tap the resultants engendered from the political instability or the rising wage and environmental costs of China,” she added.

She pointed out that for India, it was the private companies that were going for foreign expansion — unlike the sovereign wealth funds route of Singapore and West Asia. Delineating the services sector to be the engine of growth, she averred that to sustain growth Indian companies needed to move up the value-added ladder by expanding engineering and research and development services. She also emphasised the role of manufacturing in increasing employment.

She hoped that the overall competitiveness of the Indian economy would increase by innovation in high growth sectors under the broader regime of continued liberalisation and reforms. Speaking on the occasion, ABN Amro Bank senior economist Gaurav Kapoor said, “India has shifted in its growth trajectory primarily due to rule-based fiscal rectitude and a savings rate of around 35 per cent.”

He opined that big strides made in infrastructure — mainly telecom and roads — had given impetus to productivity increments. He advocated greater spending on infrastructure to not only maintain but also accelerate the growth rate.

The widely respected newsmagazine, The Economist, regularly holds such roundtables with governments of prominent economies “to build on the inherent strengths of the economies while tackling the challenges of doing business therein”.