Global economic downturn ending: PM

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday that the global economic recession, which has stymied the expansion of India's fast-growing economy, was coming to an end.

India has "been through a difficult year because of the global economic downturn which is only now coming to an end, with a slow return to normalcy in the months that lie ahead," Singh told a meeting of economic experts and ministers.

Singh's remarks came a day after official data showed India's economy growing by 6.1 per cent in the three months to June, signalling the country was emerging from the negative effects of the global downturn.

Singh's government has implemented a series of stimulus packages and the central bank has slashed interest rates aggressively to stimulate the economy.

The Prime Minister said poor monsoon rains would depress India's growth because of their importance for the farm sector, accounting for nearly 16 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Nearly two thirds of India's nearly 1.2 billion population depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

But Singh's economic panel, the Planning Commission, forecast in a report that India would return to economic growth of eight percent in 2010-2011 and nine percent a year later, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Describing the higher growth projections as "optimistic but not impossible," the panel in its report to Singh said: "If we have normal monsoon in 2010-11, we can expect a strong rebound in agriculture next year.

"Exports would also recover as industrialised countries return to positive growth of one percent in 2010 with further acceleration in 2011," it added.