Manmohan Singh to meet industry leaders on CAD, rupee, growth worries on Monday

NEW DELHI: Amidst persisting economic gloom, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will brainstorm with industry leaders tomorrow on key problems relating to subdued growth, volatile exchange rate and widening current account deficit.

"We will talk about all the major concerns besides negative sentiment which is haunting the industry. We will suggest steps to deal with CAD, rupee depreciation," said an industrialist who will attend the meeting.

The meeting is likely to be attended by CII President Kris Gopalakrishnan, ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, and Bharti group Chairman Sunil Mittal besides several others.

The Prime Minister's meeting comes against the backdrop of decelerating industrial production and the liquidity tightening measures undertaken by RBI to arrest decline in rupee. RBI initiatives are likely to further choke growth.

CAD last fiscal was 4.8 per cent and the government intends to bring it down to 4.2 per cent this financial year.

The rupee slide is another concern for the government. Earlier this month it fell to all-time low of 61.21 against the US dollar.

Singh will also discuss with captains of industry ways to accelerate skill development, besides development of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor ( CBIC) and the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor ( ADKIC).

Singh recently said that although basic fundamentals are sound and stable, the growth rate in the current financial year is likely to be lower than 6.5 per cent estimated at the time of presentation of the Budget in February.