Pointing out that most of the constraints faced in India’s economic growth were “inherently internal”, Singh said that the global environment for the country’s development was “more benign today” than it was “at any other time in recent history”.

Speaking at the silver jubilee function of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), the PM said: “I am often disappointed by the lack of adequate appreciation in our country, including among our political leaders, of the changing nature of our relationship with the world, and indeed with the region around us.”

In fact, he went on to say, “Very often, we adopt political postures that are based in the past, indeed in the distant past and are out of line with our current interests as an increasingly globalised and globally integrated economy”.

The PM also spoke of the urgent need to cash in on the “optimism” about India being shared across the world.

He said that there was “a great deal of optimism about India not only in seminar halls but also in board-rooms across the world” and added that it was this “optimism” that “needs to be sustained and converted to tangible decisions that benefit our economy”.

Here he said that while the focus of government’s policies will remain on domestic economic issues, institutes like ICRIER should continue scanning “global economic developments and (also) explore new opportunities” such that “our development goals are effectively met”.

Asking think-tanks like ICRIER to “invest in informing and shaping public opinion and policy making in all these vital aspects” he said: “India, I sincerely believe, is destined to be more globally engaged. We are destined to be more integrated with our own region. Even today, our energy security is closely inter-twined with our political relationship with a wide range of countries around the globe. Our food security, our technological security, indeed our national security, are closely linked to developments around the world”.

One of the several areas he identified as essential for study was China, Singh said, as this would “be of immense value to our economic planners, diplomats and the polity at large”.

In Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s opinion “considering the rise of China on the global economic scenario, there must be a sharper focus on development trends in China and their implications for our development”.

‘WE Need to study China’

Singh identified the following as among the key areas economic think tanks should work on:

• Development trends in China and their fallout

• Effects of free trade agreements

• Trade in services, reverse migration

• Trade in natural resources, energy

• Financial markets, capital flows from abroad