'India ready for comparison with China'

NEW DELHI: Encouraged by the economy growing at nine per cent, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday said it would not be wrong now to compare India with China though there was a lot to learn from the neighbour, especially execution of projects in time.

"India has often been compared with China...I invite comparison with China. There is enough room in the world for both China and India to grow," he said at an international conference on meeting India's infrastructure needs with public-private partnerships.

"China and India in many ways complement each other but in many areas we compete with each other," Chidambaram said.

India's savings and investment rate as percentage of GDP have gone up by 2 per cent each. But to sustain the revised growth rate of 9 per cent in 11th plan, he said: "Both savings and investment as proportion of GDP must be raised further."

There is much to be learnt from China. "But we are proud of our political system, we believe that we can learn from China about execution of projects within time, strict discipline and reward-punishment system for those who are incharge of the project execution," he said.

"We do not envy China, we wish to emulate China in the matter of infrastructure," he added.

Chidambaram expressed confidence that India would receive more investments after upgrading of sovereign rating to investment grade and seize the opportunity.