PTI
New York
The world needs "additional shoulders" other than China to push economic growth and this presents an opportunity for India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said.
Addressing students and faculty at Columbia University here on Monday, Jaitley said the revolution of raising expectations in India is a good sign.
He reiterated that India has now reached a situation where it is no longer satisfied with a 6 to 8 per cent growth rate and most Indians believe that "my normal is eight plus (growth rate), probably closer to nine per cent" and higher.
"One of the great shoulders the world was relying on (was) China. The world now needs some other additional shoulders to give a push to the growth rates," he said.
Jaitley delivered the keynote address on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University.
Noting that India grew by about 7.3 per cent last year, Jaitley said that according to internal estimates, this year "we could do a shade better than that."
He said that one of the main problems of credibility related to taxation issues.
"As far as the taxation issues are concerned, a lot needed to be done at our end and therefore in terms of direct taxes, we'd lost credibility with the world," he said, adding that aggressive taxation did the country no good and does not bring taxes but it "brought us a bad name".
"For anyone in the government, it would be a very serious challenge where assessment orders have been passed, can only be set aside by a judicial process and not by an executive decision," he said, adding that to resolve each one of these issues has been one of his toughest challenges.
He, however, expressed satisfaction that one by one each of those issues related to direct taxes is now being put to rest.
