Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the Narendra Modi government would continue with the economic reforms with single-minded focus.Addressing the CII partnership summit in this coastal city in Andhra Pradesh, he said the government would continue with reforms which it failed to pursue in recent months."Some of our reforms, which we have missed out on in the last few months, have to be pursued with a single-minded focus. We cannot afford a change in direction, and in these circumstances, every state has to contribute," the minister said.Stating that the world economy was going through an extremely difficult and challenging time and difficulties, he said this had "spilled over into our system also".
Jaitley pointed out the World Bank has lowered the global growth forecast to 2.9 percent while the growth rates of economies across the world are hovering around extremely low figures."Many of our competing economies are facing extremely serious challenges. In an integrated economy, a large number of those challenges and difficulties gets spilled over. So because of the integrated economy, what happens in China, what happens in oil prices, impact our markets. Our revenues also get impacted, when the price regimes are low because nominal GDP gets reduced," he said.He, however, said that even under the trying circumstances Indian economy was doing well. "India continues to remain the fastest growing economy in the world. So our 7-7.5 percent growth rate stands out amongst the larger economies as bright spot among global economy."Lauding the reforms initiated by Andhra Pradesh, he said the state was recording double-digit growth and it would be one of the key engines of growth.