Peace with Pakistan, China and other neighbours was required for India to have a sustained economic growth, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
KOLKATA: Peace with Pakistan, China and other neighbours was required for India to have a sustained economic growth, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here on Saturday.
"Ten to 15 years of an undisturbed environment is required for India for sustained growth," the minister told at the annual general meeting of Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry here.
Mukherjee said, "there may be causes of irritation or divergence of perceptions between India and neighbouring nations. No sovereign country may agree with us on every issue."
But, India would have to have peaceful co-existence with neighbours, he said.
Mukherjee said that the two major challenges which would confront the country were food and energy security.
The food position of the country, he said, was comfortable for the year.
Taking a dig at the Left parties, he said that the country required energy. "It is not an ideological issue. Even the guru of Marxist philosophy Lenin started his economic policy with electricity."
Mukherjee, who had been one of the main architects behind the NSG consensus on granting waiver to India on nuclear fuel supplies, said that the country had earned some respectability in the Committee of Nations.
He said that India would require an economic muscle to make the world listen to us. The minister said that India would emerge as a major player in the coming years.
"We have already become a trillion dollar economy. But China is far ahead of us," he said.
On the meltdown of US financial market, the minister said that he had discussed the issue with Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
"We need not press the panic button. Our exposure is limited and we are in a position to manage," he said.
The minister said that investments required to propel the growth rate to 10 per cent was 40 per cent of the GDP.
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