"The fundamentals of the Indian economy are such that one can declare the fundamentals have not been better in the last 52 years," he said.

Singh, addressing the India Economic Summit jointly organised by the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry, said inflation was likely to be in the "benign" level of four percent and would slip further.

The foreign exchange reserves were comfortable at around 90 billion dollars and the rupee's value against the dollar and euro was fairly stable, he added.

Singh said the strong fundamentals had provided a base for India's long-term economic growth and forecast growth in the coming decade will be up to seven percent a year.

Both the central bank and government's mid-year economic review have predicted seven percent growth for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2004.

He said fiscal deficit continues to be a worry, though.

New Delhi in the current year targetted a fiscal deficit of 5.6 percent, compared with last year's 5.9 percent.

Singh pledged to speed up economic reforms, including privatisation of state firms and the revamping of the banking and insurance sectors to boost growth.

"The Indian economy is fast approaching a time of criticality ... when the growth will be explosive.

"We have to move away from those public sector units which are a drag to the economy. So the disinvestment (privatisation) progra-mme will continue and I am very glad that the Supreme Court has said 'Come back to us and we will reexamine the issue,'" he added.

The court earlier this year suspended the privatisation of two blue-chip oil firms until parliament amended a law through which they were nationalised.

The decision virtually derailed India's privatisation programme as several other state firms had been nationalised through the same parliamentary legislation.