Becoming USD 5 trillion economy doesn't seem difficult to me: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed confidence in achieving the goal of becoming a five trillion dollar economy, during a question and answer session with Michael Bloomberg at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum here on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed confidence in achieving the target of becoming a five trillion dollar economy, during a question and answer session with Michael Bloomberg at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum here on Wednesday.

The session was held after Modi delivered his address to the summit which had prominent business leaders in attendance.

"India's economic growth is one the success stories of the century. Last month you said that India could have a USD 5 trillion economy in 5 years. How do you plan to reach that target and will it require additional economic reforms or steps to boost foreign investments?" Bloomberg put the question to Modi.

"I agree with you that today nobody in the world can do isolated activity. We are passing through an interdependent era. We are going to have to move forward as per global benchmarking. So the first thing we have to do is align our laws, rules, systems, governance, efficiency to global benchmarks so that there's ease and trust is created for the global community. Towards this, the improvements which need to be made in our laws are underway. We've taken a bunch of new initiatives," he said.

"Safety for investors is the second thing. Two things in India set us apart from the world -- one is our democracy and second is our judicial system which is in English. Due to this, if any dispute arises, these two things give confidence to investors that there's a democratic system, a perfect judicial system and because it's in English, there's no problem of interpretation. Anybody sitting in the US or UK makes the same interpretation of laws that people in India do. So the language is playing a large role. So the given situation is favourable for us," he added.

"We want to take our infrastructure towards next-generation infrastructure. We want to build new airports, we want to increase the speed of new railway lines, we want to undertake electrification, we want to give every family in India a house. This shows that infrastructure is a priority area for us. The second thing is value addition. In agriculture, we want to go towards food processing in a big way and if we try, then India can become a food basket. We want to strengthen orgc farming in India," the prime minister of India also outlined.

He also highlighted the steps being taken under the Ayushman Bharat scheme and the various investment opportunities related to it.

"We are giving health insurance to people that exceed the population of USA, Canada and Mexico put together. This means that there's a need for about 2,000 new, modern hospitals and development of hospitals in India. There's assured income in this because the government is going to make payment for it," the PM said.

Modi also talked about optical fibre networks and the Digital India movement.

"We are promoting start-ups in India. We stand at number three in the start-up ecosystem today. But we want to take if further. I believe that there's a lot of possibility for the youth. Through all of these initiatives, our economy will grow rapidly. We went from two to three in the last five years, so a five trillion dollar economy does not look difficult to me and we'll reach this goal within a fixed time frame," the leader said.

The Prime Minister made the statements at the forum after holding a meeting with the former Mayor of New York City.

The leader is currently in the United States on a week-long visit, during which he is slated to speak at the UN General Assembly on Friday. He has already held a string of engagements, including meeting US President Donald Trump twice -- once during their joint address at the mega 'Howdy Modi!' event in Houston on Sunday and during a bilateral on Tuesday.

( With inputs from ANI )