The country's long-term economic growth potential remains sustainable despite a marginal dip in growth presently, a leading banker said.
"Yes, we have inflation, and policy measures will be taken to control it... but we will see growth happen. Growth is embedded in the way we have set out our (economic) reforms process," private sector ICICI Bank's Managing Director and CEO K V Kamath told reporters on the sidelines of a CII-organised conference in Mumbai on Friday.
He, however, said that growth may slip from the previous 10 per cent level to around 8 per cent this fiscal. The services sector, which presently contributes around 60 per cent towards the country's GDP, would ensure that the economy remained on a sustainable growth path, he added.
The present inflationary spiral was a pure supply-side phenomenon and not due to any over-heating in the economy, the ICICI Bank chief said.
Inflation touched the 7 per cent mark for the week ended March 22 as against 6.68 per cent for the previous week. On liquidity conditions, Kamath said that these were comfortable and that ICICI Bank would await policy signals from the Reserve Bank before taking a call on its interest rates.
When asked whether ICICI Bank had suffered any losses on account of exotic derivatives transactions, Kamath refused to comment on the issue.
