Nov. 9 – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised at the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit to speed up economic reforms on Sunday.

“Our policy will be guided by the desire to make India even more attractive for foreign direct investment (FDI). We are particularly keen to rationalize and simplify procedures so as to create an investor-friendly environment,” Singh said in his inaugural address at the India Economic Summit 2009.

The Prime minister also said that investments in all key infrastructure sectors would be stepped up in the coming months.

According to The Hindu Business Line, increased emphasis will now be placed on tapping the strong domestic demand to boost economic growth as the government is of the view that world demand will pick up “only slowly” in the wake of the global economic downturn.

In his speech to the forum, Singh said that the government would make gradual but steady progress in financial sector reforms to make the sector more competitive.

“We need to develop long-term debt markets and to deepen corporate bond markets. This, in turn, calls for a strong insurance and pension sub-sectors,” he said.

“Some of the reforms needed, especially in insurance, involve legislative changes. We have taken initiatives in this area and will strive to build the political consensus needed for these legislative actions to be completed. We need to improve futures markets for better price discovery and regulation. We also need to remove institutional hurdles to facilitate better inter-mediation.”