NEW DELHI, Dec 14: World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu on Friday urged India to keep up its blitz of “promising” reforms, saying they can help the economy return to the nine per cent growth needed to combat poverty.

The World Bank expects growth of Asia’s third-largest economy to be 5.5 per cent this calendar year, inching up to just short of six per cent next year and reaching close to seven per cent the following year, Basu said.

If the country stays on its “promising” reform path, he added, “it has enough fundamental strength there is no reason why India can’t get back to the eight to nine per cent growth” which it enjoyed in the second half of the last decade.

“If we can continue to push on reforms we can make a big difference to India,” Basu, previously chief economic adviser to the Indian prime minister, told an economic forum in New Delhi. Basu’s remarks came as Finance Minister P. Chidambaram promised more steps to spur the economy, which has slowed sharply due to high interest rates and the global downturn, on top of a spurt of reform measures recently announced.

Late on Thursday, the cabinet cleared changes to a century-old land acquisition law and established a panel to be headed by Premier Manmohan Singh to fast-track projects to overhaul India’s dilapidated ports, roads and other infrastructure.—AFP