Economy will rebound in 6-9 months: FM

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WASHINGTON: The financial meltdown will not spare any sector of the economy, but on the brighter side recovery could be just six to nine months away, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said.

"There will be some slowdown in every sector... but monetary measures, counter-cyclical measures and enlightened measures by the companies themselves can get over this painful period of adjustments and in about 6-9 months we should be back to the growth rate," he said.

India has been growing by 9% and above for four straight years, but various estimates suggest that the impact of the economic crisis could shave off anywhere between 1 to 2 percentage points.

"We are not revising it (GDP forecast) upwards or downwards. It could be anywhere between 7-8%... The only other large country recording such growth will be China," Chidambaram said.

Commenting on the decline in inflation to single digit -- 8.98% -- after five months, he said, "I don't think we should get too excited about the single digit inflation as it is still close to 9%, much above our tolerance level.

"We would like the inflation to come down. We hope it will happen in the next few weeks, so I think we are jumping the gun when we are talking about a rate cut."

As regards the impact of slowdown on India Inc, he said, "Bottom lines in the profit and loss account will indeed be affected but it doesn't mean that something dramatic has happened in the Indian economy."

Stressing that India is still an attractive destination for foreign investors, he said the country's policy stance has attracted significant foreign direct investment as well as portfolio investment in the last four years.