Friday, October 6 2006 12:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Concerned over India's debt market not fully taking off, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday (Oct 5, 2006) stressed the need to step up financial sector reform, for which the government will soon forge a political consensus.

"We need to reform financial sector further if we are to have a larger debt market. We need to promote widely held pension fund system. We need a much larger insurance sector with a higher capital base and more diverse products," Singh said after inaugurating the new building of market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) here.

If India has to achieve the ambitious 8-10 per cent growth, "we need investment of a high order. These would be possible by making our financial markets more efficient, more competitive and more global," he said.

"We may currently be lacking a consensus on the needed reforms. However, I am confident that we will soon be able to forge a consensus on taking the reforms forward," he said apparently referring to stiff resistance to economic reforms from the UPA ally Left Front.

Asking market regulator SEBI to fully protect the interests of investors, Singh said he was happy that urgency was being given to comprehensively amend the SEBI Act to create appropriate investors' protection fund as well as further empowering the market regulator to address issues impacting investors' interest.