Govt plans for attracting NRI investment: FM

New Delhi, Jan 9: Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the government was in the process of designing financial instruments with a longer time horizon for attracting flows from overseas Indians and indicated that an institutional mechanism was in the offing for intermediation of knowledge from them.

''NRI remittance to India, on average are of a three year duration. I urge you to expand your horizon to bring long term money for at least ten years as well as your expertise in various fields, Mr Chidambaram said addressing a session at the fifth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meet here.

He said that their expertise relating to the field of agriculture would be of particular interest to the country and enable India to move to a four per cent annual growth rate in agriculture from the meagre less than 2 per cent levels.

Mr Chidambaram said that the government was considering a proposal for setting up an ''institutional mechanism'' to harness the knowledge capital of overseas Indians.

The finance minister alluded to the fact that a 9 per cent GDP growth rate in the current fiscal would be a reality. ''I am confident that the current fiscal year will end up with a growth rate of close to 9 per cent although I do not know where the decimal might fall, he said.

He said that there were enough evidence in contemporary economic history to suggest that a double digit growth rate can be sustained for a long period of time. ''East Asian economies have demonstrated their capability to achieve double digit growth for a long period of time in the 70s and 80s. China continues to surprise us and has achieved a double digit growth for the last seven to eight years,'' he said.

So what we are aiming at is not impossible'', he said noting that in the last three years GDP has grown at 7.5 per cent per annum in India. He also pointed out that the GDP growth in the first six months of the current fiscal was to the tune of 9.1 per cent.

The finance minister sought assistance from the overseas Indian community entailing new ways of enhancing productivity to put the country's farm sector on to a high growth trajectory. In this connection, Mr Chidambaram said that there was a special relationship between the tiller and land and any attempt to break this was bound to meet with opposition.

While public investment in irrigation was the need of the hour, Mr Chidambaram said there was a huge opportunity for the private sector in the Indian agriculture sector. ''We have to find ways and means for agriculture sector on a high growth secular platform,'' he said.

The finance minister sought a closer engagement with the overseas Indian community and called upon them to contribute to the monumental task of developing India. In this connection he said that the borders of nations need not be barriers to closer integration of the global community, more so for Indians settled abroad.

''The difference between the host country and the home country has withered away,'' Mr Chidambaram remarked.

UNI