India's prime minister on Wednesday conceded the domestic economy was heading into "turbulent weather" with slowing growth and high inflation.
Manmohan Singh told a meeting of his ministers and secretaries that the government must strive to revive flagging business and shore up confidence among investors in India's economy.
"After achieving remarkably high growth rates over the past eight years... we are now running into more turbulent weather," a statement from Singh's office quoted him as saying.
Economic growth figures published last week showed the Indian economy growing at 5.3 percent in the January-March period, the slowest quarterly growth figure in nine years.
Singh blamed India's economic woes mainly on the eurozone debt crisis and "rising international petroleum and commodity prices".
"In these difficult times, we must do everything possible to revive business and investor sentiment (and) we must work to create an atmosphere which is conducive to investment and to removing any bottlenecks to growth," he said.
Singh's government is also under pressure to rein in subsidies and other spending after its budget deficit widened to 5.75 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year ended March 31.
For 2012/13, the government is targeting a deficit of 5.1 percent, but analysts say this is based on a very optimistic growth estimate of 7.6 percent and under current spending plans the gap could be much larger.
India's other indicators are also a source of worry: the rupee is at historic lows against the dollar and annual inflation remains high at around 7.0 percent.