Amid global slowdown, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today expressed confidence that 8-10 per cent growth rate is achievable on the back of increased investments and right mix of policies.
“I do believe it is (8 per cent and above growth) achievable... if we take right steps in right direction and hopefully we don’t have too many adverse global trend. It could be reasonably achievable. In order to achieve, it is extremely important that we open ourselves for investments,” he said.
In his address at the Indian Chamber of Commerce event here, Jaitley said that the roadmap for phasing out of exemptions to corporates will be announced soon.
India has to accept that higher direct taxes are not in larger interest of the economy, he said.
“I have announced in Budget with effect from next year and over next few years, I will bring down the rate of corporate tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent. I stand by that commitment. Simultaneously, even though the rate is 30 per cent, the effective rate is 22. The reason is there are a large number of exemptions,” he said.
So, slowly a number of these exemptions are going to be phased out, he said.
“Very, shortly I will be putting the first set of exemption to be phased out in public domain for discussion.
And therefore returns will become simpler,” he said.
On growth potential, he said: “Even between 6-8 per cent growth, the thinking India believes that this is not our potential. The entire battle in terms of policy battle is to evolve ourselves from this 6-8 per cent growth to 8 per cent growth upwards towards a double-digit.”