Ahead of an important conference on development economics, held for the first time in a developing country, a top World Bank official on Tuesday praised India for its decade-old economic reforms, but said it would have to push ahead more for accelerated development.

"India has shown to the developing world the right kind of economic growth. We do know that (growth) is slowing. It will have to push ahead more for accelerated development," the World Bank Vice President and Chief Economist Nicholas H Stern said.

As the World Bank-sponsored Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics gets underway on Wednesday, to be held first time outside Washington, Stern said told reporters here that he was 'rather positive' about the growth India achieved in the last 10 years.

He said the World Bank has acknowledged the strong research that has been conducted in recent years in developing countries and is trying to come closer to participants in its programmes.

The ABCDE is projected as one of the world's best known meets on development.

'Accelerating development' is the theme of the three-day conference in which eminent experts from different parts of the world will present new research findings and discuss policy issues related to poverty alleviation, Stern said.

Since 1989, the ABCDE has been held annually in Washington and for the past four years, a similar conference has been held each year in Europe.

Starting this year's conference here, each of these conferences would be held in a developing country every other year, Stern said.

The conference topics include fostering entrepreneurship, innovation and growth; challenges of development in lagging regions; participation, inclusion, and results; and scaling up and evaluation, while afternoon workshops would discuss issues in public service delivery; globalisation and South Asia; private sector and development; and reforming infrastructure.