Confident of India Hitting the Higher Growth Path: Jaitley at NDTV Debate in Davos

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley; noted economist Nouriel Roubini; ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and Hari Bhartia, co-chairman & founder of Jubilant Life Sciences, took part in a discussion at NDTV's World Economic Forum Debate in Davos. The session was moderated by NDTV's Vikram Chandra. Here are the highlights of what Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at the session.

• Confident of India hitting the higher growth path
• Instead of concentrating on high growth rates, we went into debates on what is pro-poor and pro-rich in the past 10 years
• India had lost out to competing with China
• Investors are likely to judge us by the direction we have been following in the past 8 months
• Mere lip talk will not help
• We must have a fair tax regime
• Investors will invest only if there is a stable, non-adversarial tax regime in India
• Those who are supposed to pay taxes must pay taxes
• Opening up of railways and defence is not a small reform
• Energy sector reformed completely, coming up with legislation in mining was not a small reform
• We have a more liberal FDI policy that anywhere in the world
• One of the great setbacks of the last decade has been credibility of government declined
• India has unrealistic laws in the modern era of liberalization
• No government can risk giving spectrum for free after the 2G verdict in India
• We must not allow economic agenda to be derailed
• The fundamentals of our economy are strong
• We are in a position to absorb the shocks if oil prices go up and still grow
• Do not find any resistance from civil service or bureaucracy in India