Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has stressed on the need for the Asian economies to collectively think on channels of engagement with each other that create synergies directed at addressing common challenges.
Mr Mukherjee was addressing two-day national seminar on “21st Century as the Asian Century: Role of India and China” organised by Manipal Centre for Asian Studies on Saturday.
“Even in existing multilateral for a including the G-20 and IMF we should aim to coordinate more in areas where there is significant collective gain to be achieved, he said.
“A crisis of the magnitude that we are witnessing compels us to take notice of our deficiencies, suitably reorient policies and redefine priorities. While economic challenges faced by each Asian country are unique and there is no one-size-fits-all future trajectory of economic development, there is worldwide recognition of the fact that most Asian economies, including India are poised to attain sustained long-term growth, notwithstanding some short-term policy challenges,” he said.
“Timely policy interventions helped most of the Asian economies, including India, to recover quickly from the 2008-09 global crises. In 2012, as per IMF estimates, Asia’s real GDP growth of around 8.2 per cent outpaced growth in other regions of the world with China and India being in the forefront,” Mr Mukherjee said.
He added that the Indian economy, in particular, recovered with an average growth of 8.4 per cent in the two years flowing the crisis in 2008-09.
“Since then, factors including monetary and fiscal policy tightening, uncertainties in capital flows and slowdown in external demand have impacted the growth performances of these economies to varying degrees, he said.