Singh invited Malaysian corporations to participate in the development of Indian infrastructure, which would need investment of about $1 trillion during the 12th Plan period (2012-17).
Seeking Malaysian cooperation in higher education and IT sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said India would have to educate its young population and develop their skills to achieve 10% economic growth rate on sustained basis.
While delivering the Khazanah Global Lecture in Kuala Lumpur, Singh also invited Malaysian corporate to participate in the development of Indian infrastructure, which would need investment of about $1 trillion during the 12th Plan period (2012-17).
"A young population is an asset only if it is educated, skilled and finds productive employment. If this were to happen, our objective of realising India's potential to grow at 10% or more per annum for substantial period of time can become a reality," he said.
The average age of an Indian by 2020 would be 29 years as compared to 29 years in case of China and 48 for Japan.
Having grown by over 9% for three consecutive years, the economic growth rate slipped to 6.7% during 2008-09, mainly on account of the impact of the global financial crisis. The growth rate, however, picked up during 2009-10 to 7.4%.
Regarding the current fiscal, Singh said, "we expect 8.5 per cent growth."
Recalling steps taken by India to set up more IITs and other institutes, he said, "both higher education and the IT sectors are promising areas for India-Malaysia cooperation."
Pointing out that Indian financial sector, including banking and capital markets, are strong, the prime minister said, "this had helped support a boom in domestic investment. Domestic investment is complemented by strong Foreign Direct Investment flows which are welcome."
Singh further said that like the East Asian nations, India too is having high savings and investment rates. "India now saves and invests well over 30%," he added.
Admitting that infrastructure was a "major constraint", Singh said, "we are determined to overcome it. In the 11th Plan that ends in 2011-12, we had targeted investment in infrastructure of $500 billion. We hope to step this up to one trillion US dollars in the 12th Plan.
"Malaysia has well known strengths in building infrastructure and we welcome greater Malaysian participation in this sector," Singh said.
India is in the process of setting up infrastructure investment funds and would seek international funding.
"There are big plans afoot in India to set up special investment funds that can be used to finance long-gestation infrastructure projects. We hope to attract Indian and international funding into these projects," Singh added.
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