Manmohan confident US will overcome economic crisis

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is pretty confident that the US will recover from the global economic crisis, thanks to the skills of the US business class and the US educational system.

"I hope the United States will recover from last year's disaster," he said in an interview with Newsweek-Washington Post in New Delhi ahead of his state visit to the US for a summit with President Barack Obama Nov 24.

"With the entrepreneurial skills of the US business class and the US educational system, I have no doubt that the United States will overcome this temporary setback," Manmohan Singh said when asked if he believed that the economic crisis has eroded the US' leadership role in Asia.

On how India itself seemed to have escaped the downturn, Manmohan Singh said the Indian banking system is better regulated and didn't allow heavy investment in these types of assets.

Noting that India's export growth rate has sharply declined and the flow of capital has also been affected, he said: "But more recently, capital has started coming back to our country. Before the crisis, our growth rate was at 8.5 percent to 9 percent per year.

This year it will be about 6.5 percent. In two years, we should go back to 9 percent growth rates."

Asked what he would like to achieve in the next few years, the Prime Minister said his agenda was for a "growth rate of about 9 percent per annum and to ensure that this growth is an inclusive growth - that the benefits of development reach out to all sectors of our population."

Asked if he had made a difference to India as prime minister and what would be his legacy, Manmohan Singh said: "I hope I've made some difference. That's for posterity to judge."

Last updated on Nov 20^th, 2009 at 21:23 pm IST--IANS