India can grow at 8% : World Bank President

India faced challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic but has recovered “strongly” and can achieve 8% growth through a stronger private sector, land and agriculture reforms, and ensuring credit gets to small enterprises, among others, said Mr. David Malpass, president of the World Bank.

This is the right time for India to attract investment amid a global diversification of supply chains and manufacturing, he told ET in an interview, calling for a focus on making the country competitive. Mr. Malpass was in India to attend a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. He met Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 22 February, 2023.

On global monetary tightening, the outgoing World Bank chief said interest rates were abnormally low over the past decade and the world should plan on this normalising. He warned that developing countries, in particular, are facing much higher financing costs and interest rates on their debt.