New Delhi: India must grow by at least 8-10 percent over the next 25 years so that the it is able to lift the average income of people and create more jobs, Singapore Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on Friday.

He delivered the first Arun Jaitley Memorial Lecture, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other dignitaries.

"To do both at the same time, to lift per capita income significantly and to create many more jobs for the larger population, you need an 8-10 percent growth, that is the minimum that has to be achieved in the next 25 years," Shanmugaratnam said.

He also said India needs to focus both on productivity and job growth.

"You need the productive growth because it's the only way in which incomes are going to grow but you need a lot more job growth and it can be achieved," he said.

He also said that India will have to increase its pace of reforms and re-orient the role of the government to deal with the challenges that the country might face in the next 25 years.

Stressing that India should not move away from multilateralism, he said globalisation provides a huge opportunity for the Indian economy.

Those who say that globalisation is retreating have been proven wrong as global trade has increased post-COVID and has surpassed pre-COVID level, Shanmugaratnam said, adding that India needs to focus on agriculture as it is very critical.

(With PTI inputs)

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