The Indian economic party is back on.

Involve months ago, delegates to India's annual economic jamboree in New Delhi were sunk in gloom about the country's pros pects, with the world mired in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

This year, the tone at the India World Economic Forum, attended by over 600 delegates from around the globe, has been decidedly gung-ho.

Spirits have been lifted by government promises to press ahead with long-awaited reforms and create an investment-friendly climate.

"India has come through the crisis better than other countries. We have growth here," said Lars Thunell, chief executive of the Washington-based International Finance Corporation, at the meeting, which began at the weekend.

"India is in a sweet spot," said Rajan Raghuram, finance professoral the University of Chicago.

India's growth prospects appear decidedly rosy compared with the West, where economies are still sunk in recession. In fact, its leaders have been sounding downright smug. .

"I am happy to say India has been able to face the global economic downturn better than most other countries in the world," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the summit.

He forecast the economy would grow by 6.5 percent in the current fiscal year to March and by more than seven percent next year, saying the country "looks forward to the future with confidence".

"India is the next country off the block after China, Japan and Korea," Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy head of a blue-ribbon government economic advisory panel, told the three-day meeting.

Strong auto sales, robust industrial output figures and other data

all point to a rebounding economy, experts say.

"It's all happened much faster than we expected. We didn't see this kind of positive news coming through until next year," said Jairaj Purandare, executive director of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

There is a caveat however: even growth rates of seven percent, which might sound turbo-charged in the developed world, are not enough for India.

The government says it needs nine to 10 percent growth to make any significant reduction in deeply entrenched poverty.

Some 42 percent of Indians still live below the extreme poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day, compared with 16 percent in China, accord-

ing to the World Bank.

To shift onto a higher growth plane, India says it plans to invest billions of dollars in overhauling its dilapidated roads, ports, power and other infrastructure sectors.

To raise the funds this will require from both domestic and foreign sources, the government says it needs to pursue further reforms and open up the financial sector, including pensions and insurance.

"We are better placed than any time in the recent past to push the reform process forward," said Singh, who is credited with firing the starting pistol in India's liberalisation process in the 1990s.

He said India had drawn foreign direct investment of over 120

billion dollars since 2001-02 but needed much more to develop its economy.

"You are all welcome in our efforts," the premier told delegates.

But Transport Minister Kamal Nath cautioned that even under best-case scenarios, change could be slow in this country of nearly 1.2 billion people, where public suspicion of liberalisation is widespread.

"We are not only the largest democracy. We are the rowdiest. We have to encompass all kinds of views," said the minister.

However after the Congress party was decisively re-elected in May, freeing it from reliance on Communists in parliament, the

government has a much stronger political hand.

Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, which has been staging the India conference for 25 years, said the country had become a much easier "sell" to foreigners seeking investment opportunities.

"Twenty-five years ago it was an uphill battle to sell India in the international market. But today India is a brand and we all know how precious brands are these days, ” he told reporters.

"Sure I think there are opportunities," said Randy Eisenbach, chief executive officer of US print-ing equipment company Printronix Inc. "That's why I’m here."