New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley said that India has what it takes to clock 7-8 per cent GDP growth, aided by favourable policies and a supportive global environment.

Speaking at the India-Korea Business Summit in New Delhi on Tuesday, the finance minister expressed the hope that India will retain its fastest growing economy tag. “India has demonstrated in the last few years that it has, even in a global environment of adversity, a potential to self correct itself, to continue to take difficult decisions if necessary and maintain a high growth trajectory,” he noted.

According to Jaitley, what will trigger growth is the fact that India has been able to blend its economic decisions with political acceptability. “With policy changes accompanied by a supportive global environment, India perhaps has the potential to achieve a little more than that (7-8 per cent growth),” he added.

On the Narendra Modi-led government’s focus area, ease of doing business, Jaitley said the dexterity with which the government goes about simplifying procedures has made doing business in India much easier. Also, the government is always looking to further simplify procedures.

On the tax front, the FM said India has been able to unify taxes and bring about a relatively simpler tax structure. For international investors, indirect tax structures have become very investor friendly, he claimed.

With respect to retrospective taxation, Jaitley said: “Whatever misgivings we had about our direct tax structures in the past including some erroneous decisions which governments have taken, we have completely eliminated those fears and added more predictability and stability as far as taxation is concerned.” He said the government is consciously encouraging some sectors such as manufacturing.

“The manufacturing sector is an area where India still has to achieve its best. Therefore, we believe that in the next decade or two, this is a sector which is going to expand very substantially and most policies therefore are now conducive to domestic manufacturing,” he added.