MUMBAI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said infrastructure investment needs a booster and his next Budget in February will focus on encouraging more public as well as private spending to boost economic growth.
Speaking at ET Now awards, he said India aspires to become a developed economy from a developing economy and a 7- 7.5 per cent GDP growth does not satisfy its requirements.
“Therefore spending more and now” is the focus, he said adding infrastructure spending “certainly needs a booster.”
The Finance Minister said there is a long-term potential of more resources getting into the system and that is going to be the top priority.
“Therefore, the areas where we were lacking, whether in terms of encouraging investment of the private sector and so on, I think these are going to be the areas where budget should concentrate on,” he said.
The Government is likely to advance the date of budget presentation for 2017-18 to February 1 next year as against the usual date of February 28.
On the impact of demonetisation on the economy, Jaitley admitted that “altering this normal is extremely disruptive” but “in the long run you will have a higher GDP, a higher revenue and probably far cleaner economy and far cleaner public life.” (AGENCIES)
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