India is confident its economy will grow by more than 9 per cent in the fiscal year to March-end despite a jump in the value of the rupee against the dollar and high interest rates, a minister said.

Annual expansion dipped just below 9 per cent for the first time in three quarters in July-September to 8.9 per cent as industrial output slowed due to monetary tightening designed to trim inflation.
“We are confident growth rates would be maintained. It will be in excess of 9 per cent in 2007/08,” Trade Minister Kamal Nath said.
Analysts say the central bank’s full-year forecast of 8.5 per cent should be met. Nath said the government was discussing ways to minimise the impact of the rupee’s appreciation on exporters. It has risen by about 12 per cent this year, but he did not elaborate on how the minimisation would be achieved..
India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy after China, grew 9.4 per cent in the last fiscal year, its strongest in 18 years.
Growth has averaged 8.6 per cent a year in the past four years, which has attracted global investors’ attention, fuelling a stock market boom and pushing firms to expand capacity. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who met top businessmen to discuss the economy, said the government was committed to ensuring that growth of 9 per cent continues even in the face of a possible global slowdown.
“Our policy must be tuned to sustain 9 per cent growth even if world growth slows down and global food and fuel prices continue to remain under pressure,” Singh told the meeting of the panel.
“India should have the ambition and the courage to sustain the current acceleration of growth no matter what happens globally.”
The Reserve Bank of India, keen to cool the economy and price pressures, raised interest rates five times between mid-2006 and March this year but left them steady at its last review in October. Many economists now expect the next move to be down. The central bank has also raised banks’ reserve requirements in the past year to slow credit growth and inflation.
“While India must remain alert to trends in the global economy, we must also recognise that the world is looking at India as the new engine of growth,” Singh said.