President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday hit out at “self-styled Cassandras” who make predictions and urged businessmen to shun pessimism to focus on a domestic demand-driven growth strategy.
Speaking during a felicitation meeting organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry to honour him on his first visit to Chennai after becoming the President, Mukherjee skipped his prepared speech and said that there is no dearth of self-styled Cassandras who always make forecasts. Indian businessmen should have confidence in themselves and the competent workforce, he added.
“The GDP has slowed down, inflation is high, environment for investments do not appear bright and fiscal deficit is an area of concern but lamenting on negative sentiments will not overcome these problems,” said the ex-finance minister.
The President said that there have been ups and down but the fundamentals of the country’s economy is strong. The gross domestic savings may not be that high as 36 per cent recorded in 2007 but it is still high at 32 per cent, he said.
He said the euro zone crisis had a lasting impact on world economic growth but due to the effort of the entrepreneurs and farmers, the country has turned the tables in two consecutive years. However, in this first quarter, the GDP growth shrunk to 5.5 per cent.
“But around the world not many countries are doing better than us and International Monetary Fund is revising growth projection of all the countries,” Mukherjee said.
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