A combination of free market forces addressing energy-related infrastructure needs, questions of reform in a number of key states, and supporting a more effective public sector could generate an eight-fold expansion in India’s economy by 2050 with an annual growth rate of 8 per cent, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said on Saturday. Summers also said the multilateral development banks (MDBs) have a last chance to “move dramatically” to address current issues such as climate change failing which there might be a move towards new multilateral institutions.
“I think this is a reasonable thing to say that a stretched target, an ambitious goal, a possible aspiration for India is an eight-fold growth between now and the end of the half century, that an 8 per cent a year, which isn’t my forecast on current policy. But I believe given India’s potential even in the more challenging world economy, I believe that is an imaginable goal and an eight-fold expansion of the economy is transformative on the lives of hundreds of millions of people,” Summers said while delivering a lecture ‘The World is on Fire’ organised by the CII and Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.