Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has exuded confidence that the Indian economy will continue to grow close to 8.5 per cent in 2011-12 fiscal replicating the performance of the last financial year. Mr Mukherjee said this while delivering a keynote address at a Conference on US-India Economic and Financial Partnership in Washington. According to an official press release, Mr Mukherjee said that rising saving and investment rate in the country and rapid progress of infrastructure and Information and Technology sectors will help the country sustain a high growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent in the coming few decades. The Finance Minister assured the gathering of Indian-American corporate leaders that the reform process will continue unabated. He said the discussions were underway to build consensus on further liberalising of the FDI policy in the retail and defence sectors. On the global trade scenario, he said, India intends to double its exports to reach a level of 500 billion US dollars in the next three years. Mr Mukherjee, however, said the challenge is to sustain GDP expansion in the light of global developments and contain domestic inflation, which is hovering at around 9 per cent.