Economy may grow at over 8 per cent in FY'11 on rising demand: Sen

KOLKATA: India's economic growth this fiscal may top 8 per cent on the back of rising domestic demand, a senior government official said on Saturday.

"Given the strength of the domestic demand of the economy, the country could easily register growth of between 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent. It may be well over eight per cent also," secretary with the ministry of statistics and programme implementation Pronab Sen said.

Sen said that clocking a growth of rate of nine per cent to 10 per cent appeared to be improbable as it would require a strong export growth.

Given the present state of the global economy, Sen said India would face an uphill task in pushing exports aggressively in Japan, the US, and Europe.

He said that unlike in 2009-10, India had gained from positive net exports, a position which had now reversed.

He said that growth in imports was higher than growth in exports leading to a negative net export.

Sen, who is also the Chief Statistician of India, said that the health of India's financial system would also contribute to the growth of the economy.