The Indian economy grew at 5.5 percent, but if you look at the last 30 years - for example, 1960 to 1985 - the progress made by East Asian countries was phenomenal. In a single generation they had been able to transform the character of their economy. They were able to get rid of chronic poverty.

The first and foremost priority is to finish the unfinished task which the founding fathers of India set out for us at the time of our independence: to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance, and disease, which have afflicted millions and millions of our people.

Because the Chinese insistence on one child, I think the proportion of older, non-working age population is going to rise sharply in China.

No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.

We have to walk on two legs. We have to create conditions in which manufacturing and services - the economy outside agriculture - move and move fast enough. And at the same time the working force that is available must have skills which will fit the kind of jobs which will be in demand.

Let me say that I think the economic history of the last 150 years clearly shows that if you want to industrialize a country in a short period, let us say 20 years, and you don't have a well-developed private sector, entrepreneurial class, then central planning is important.

I think the modernization of Chinese economy and Chinese society is a prime concern.