The Centre has said that there is imperative need for system consolidation to check the slowdown in economy. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was addressing the Economic Editors' Conference in New Delhi today. He expressed concern that India's economy is challenged due to widening fiscal, revenue and current account deficit. Asserting that without financial reforms, risk of sharp and continued slowdown will be prevalent in the country's economy. Mr. Chidambaram announced that the government will be taking credible fiscal correction, beginning this year for the next five years. He said, the Kelkar Committee has presented the worse case scenario and everything possible will be done to contain inflation, particularly the food inflation. He said that the government has firm belief that fiscal and monetary policy must work in tandem to ensure economic growth of the country. Allaying the fear on FDI in retail and insurance sectors, the Finance Minister said that FDI in retail will not impact the rural market or even small cities as it has been allowed only in the cities having a population of 10 lakh or more. Besides, the states are free to accept or reject it. On cooking gas price issue, Mr. Chidambaram said that LPG prices are fixed by the LPG producers taking in account various factors. Saying that government has no role in determining its price, Mr. Chidambaram said that in fact, government is paying half of the price fixed by the producers, as subsidy. He said that government has abolished excise and customs duty on LPGs. On implementation of goods and services tax regime, the Minister said that he will be meeting the Chairman of the Group of State Finance Ministers, Sushil Modi, on the issues very soon. He exuded confidence that he will be able to resolve all the issues on GST and after that, the passage of Bill will be easy in Parliament. On disinvestments, Mr. Chidambaram said that the first case is being taken up this month with disinvestment in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd., RINL, and the intended disinvestment will be completed within six months.Citing recession in global economy, the Minister said that India's economy has not been immune to these developments. It registered a growth of 6.5 per cent during 2011-12 in terms of GDP and in forth quarter of 2013, the provisional estimate of growth is 5.5 per cent. He said that there is no cause to worry as the growth is likely to go up in the coming quarters. He said that overall inflation declined from 9.8 per cent in August 2011 to about 7.5 per cent in August this year but it still remains high. He lamented that a tight money policy has dampened investment as well as growth, particularly in the industrial sector.He said that government has to take more steps to contain inflation by implementing economic reforms. He said that foremost task before the government is to promote savings, channelize the savings into investments and achieve a rate of investment of 37 to 38 per cent of GDP. He said that once it is done, the growth will recover to 8 per cent or more and perhaps, touch 9 per cent.