Setting at rest speculations on his shifting from the North Block, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh on Wednesday said he was not leaving the finance ministry.

"Great disappointment to all of you. I am not leaving the finance ministry. Speculations on that score are to be put to rest," the finance minister told reporter amidst laughter, while announcing cut in interest rate on farm loans.

There was speculation in the last few weeks that Singh was likely to move out of the finance ministry.

Singh, former minister for external affairs, swapped places with Yashwant Sinha last year.

'Economy on right track'

Exuding confidence over high growth in the current fiscal, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said on Wednesday that the fundamentals of the economy were strong due to good monsoon, low inflation and satisfactory growth of industry and exports.

"I do assert that the macro economic conditions in the country has not been like this for a very long time. We have had significant amount of growth forecast by various agencies," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Asked about the rate at which India's GDP would grow in 2003-04, the finance minister said, "I do not want to state anything about GDP growth rate. You can ask me this after three months."

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The minister said as far as the infrastructure sector is concerned, petroleum refinery, coal, electricity and finished steel had registered impressive growth rates during the first two months of the current financial year.

Singh said according to the latest data from the Met department, despite its late arrival, monsoon rainfall has been normal in all the 36 meteorological sub-divisions of the country.

He said the increase in reservoir level in dams and tanks in the country in some cases have been about 300 per cent higher as compared to last year.

Singh said that we have to maintain a soft interest rate so that higher growth in credit to manufacturing and industry is ensured.

Stock markets continue to show healthy and buoyant growth while financial results of corporates were also robust, he added.

As far as inflation is concerned, Singh said, "It is a single digit figure hovering between 4.5 and 5.5 per cent, which gives us a feeling of comfort."

Exports to major destinations have also shown significant growth, he said.

Stating that exports to China grew 106 per cent last fiscal, Singh said it was in contradiction to the fears expressed in the country that cheap Chinese goods will flood India's markets.

Moreover, exports to Philippines grew by 90 per cent, while it rose by 50 per cent to Indonesia and by over 20 per cent to countries like the United States, Japan, Australia, Israel, South Korea, UAE and Singapore.

"It is a WTO (World Trade Organisation) observation that despite a global slowdown in exports, two countries -- China and India -- have done extremely well. India's export growth was higher than that of East Asian tigers like Hongkong, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore," he said.

When asked whether government would prepay more of its high cost external debts in the wake of $83 billion forex reserves, Singh said, "We are planning all that."