Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan today said there was a need to stimulate investments to get back to high growth path. Rangarajan's observation comes at a time when the industrial output contracted to 0.6 per cent in December due to poor performance of manufacturing and mining sectors and decline in production of capital as well as consumer goods. Mr. Rangrajan said that investment rate has fallen but it is still growing at a rate of 30 to 32 per cent. He assured that in the next fiscal we should be able to

grow at 6 to 7 per cent and 8 per cent thereafter. Rangarajan added, the government was committed to tread on
the path of fiscal consolidation and the fiscal deficit in current year will be close to the targeted 5.3 per cent. Pointing out the reasons for high current account deficit Rangarajan further said, the CAD has been high due to a variety of factors excessive import of gold plus demand for our exports has been coming down. India's economy continues to grow at a relatively higher rate as compared to Europe or other developed countries, so imports continue to be a little strong.