Indian economic growth to continue despite policy paralysis: Mittal

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Stressing that India's growth story was not over, billionaire Lakshmi N. Mittal on Sunday said the Asia's third largest economy will continue to grow despite policy paralysis.

"India story is definitely not over. We are in the process of continuous growth. India has tremendous potential to grow and we have a momentum to grow," Mittal, chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, said here.

Growth in India, he said, had slowed because of economic crisis in the European Union. "Before 2008 crisis... everyone believed that India is decoupled from global economy. The crisis showed we are not. Clearly, one reason why growth has been slowing in past one-and-half year is European crisis," he said, adding EU crisis was impacting global economy, which, in turn, was affecting growth in India.

The 7-7.5 per cent growth in India was a matter of envy for the world, he said drawing parallel to Brazil, another emerging economy, which was growing at 3-4 per cent only.

"While we should continue to strive for higher growth rate... I think we should not be contended, but I think we should not take it negatively that India growth story is over. There is tremendous potential," he said.

Mittal, who had on Saturday in Bhatinda stated that he would not complain of policy paralysis despite slow decision making, said India would continue to grow despite politics or policy paralysis.

"Whatever may happen in terms of politics, you may call it paralysis, I think the country will continue to grow. I am very positive about it," he added.

Mittal said India today is what China was 20 years back but hastened to add that Asia's third largest economy should be benchmarked against US.

"We are like China 20 years back," he said. "Our benchmark should not be China. Our benchmark should be the United States. China's benchmark is not India and why our benchmark should be China."

"Our strengths are very different. We have very educated, intelligent class of people, we have very young group which makes up for 50 per cent of our population," he said.

Mittal said India should be benchmarked against developing world, where growth has slowed and 'we can create value for them'.

Asia's richest man said his company's mergers and acquisitions were more driven by business interest than by attractiveness of a country. "M&A (mergers and acquisitions) is not driven by country. M&A is driven by business," he said.

"We are not here (in India) to hedge our risk like Russian businessman." "The focus is where ever our business opportunity takes us, we should go," he said. Mittal had in Bhatinda on Saturday stated that his philosophy was not to complain about policies but to adapt to them.

"We have businesses all over the world. I tell my guys don't complain about the policies, try to adopt... We don't complain. We have tried to adapt to local policies. We will all have to adjust to the new policies," Mittal had said in Bhatinda.

But, he had said, decision-making was slow. "Surely things are moving slowly. There is no doubt. Process approval are taking time... The biggest impediment is still infrastructure development," he said.