India has a very big infrastructure programme: Arun Jaitley

Beijing: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that India has a very huge infrastructure programme and will decide which of its projects can be referred to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for funding, depending on the availability of finances.Jaitley revealed this to China`s state-run CCTV in an interview after a Saturday meeting with representatives of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing."

The sky is the limit for investments in India and its economic growth is sustainable because it has a lot of distance to cover and It (growth) is sustainable for the reason that India has lot of distance in terms of economic growth to cover. In view of this a lot of potential exists for investments in infrastructure, urbanisation, housing, power, water and social sector," he said."For us today sky is the limit.

That is the kind of investments we require. Therefore a lot of economic activity has to go into it. Currently public finances are taking the lead in doing so. I am sure in due course as the economy is picking up, private sector will also boost this," he added.Jaitley stated that if the country has a good monsoon, that itself will help boost rural economy, rural purchasing power and would add to the economy, despite the fact that we had less than normal monsoon. Monsoon plays very important role in India`s economic growth.This year hopefully the monsoon seems to be all right," he said China is the largest shareholder with 26.06 per cent voting shares. India is the second largest shareholder with 7. 5 per cent followed by Russia 5.93 per cent and Germany with 4.5 percent.

Last year, India surpassed China which posted 6.9 per cent growth rate.On the global infrastructure and economic growth, a subject in which he is going to speak at a seminar here tomorrow, Jaitley spoke about his concerns over the global economic slowdown and How long will this (global slowdown) continue and how world will pull itself out of this situation and how does growth return to the world.