Once again, Prime Minister A B Vajpayee underlined what he called the Government’s commitment to economic reforms. ‘‘Our reform process continues to target high growth with balanced and equitable development,’’ he said in his inaugural address to the India-Asean business summit. ‘‘Our ambitious GDP growth target of eight per cent exhorts us to stay on this path. There can be no looking back,’’ he said. Citing India’s average growth of about six per cent, in an echo of his speech on his recent European trip, Vajpayee said: ‘‘Like an elephant, the Indian economy may be somewhat slow to gather momentum but when it does so, it is unstoppable and irreversible.’’ Indirectly referring to the recent setback in disinvestment of oil PSUs, the Prime Minister said that ‘‘such hiccups are only the democratic process of reconciling divergences and achieving consensus.’’ He also assured the business community that the Government was making every effort to make policies more investor-friendly, using e-governance to tackle the problems of cumbersome procedures, paper work and bureaucracy. And that the changes would be evident soon. Emphasising that Asia’s strengths were evident in the new economy bringing the continent to the forefront of the knowledge revolution, Vajpayee said India and Asean have a historic opportunity to promote this process to mutual benefit by exploiting the synergies between them. ‘‘Trade is the backbone of any economic relationship. Our two-way trade of less than $10 billion does not do justice to our population of one-and-half billion people producing a trillion and a half dollars worth of goods and services annually,’’ he said. ‘‘Our businesses need greater awareness of opportunities. The two-way flow of information has to be accelerated. This requires active relations between our chambers of commerce, and regular exchanges of business delegation. Vajpayee said the present global economic slowdown provides ‘‘an immediate context for our closer regional integration.’’ He said the western economies which have been the mainstay of Asia’s foreign investment and export-led growth today faced uncertain prospects of recovery in the near future. The Prime minister said each of the Asean countries has achieved expertise and even dominance in certain areas of technology. ‘‘It is crucial that we cooperate by complementing our respective strengths, rather than undercutting each other,’’ he said.
