PUNE: Squashing talks about an economic slowdown, including the aviation sector in India, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that on the contrary, the sector is looking to increase its passengers from the current 450 million to a billion, in addition to 100 new airports, in the next few years. 

Puri was speaking at a valedictory session of Geo-Economics Conference 2020 held in Pune on Sunday.

“India’s many statistics don’t show an economic slowdown,” said Puri. 

He further said, “Today, we are already the world’s third-largest domestic civil aviation market. Pune airport is handling 9 million passengers and they want to take it up to 16 million and they want more flights.” 

The conference was organised by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Pune International Centre (PIC) from February 28 to March 1. 

The MEA-PIC Geo-Economic Conference was held under the annual Asia Economic Dialogue series. 

Puri also mentioned that Asia has been shaped by dynamic economies of China, Japan, India and others. 

He said, “Asia is shaped by dynamic economies of countries such as the rise of China, its position in the global economy with a GDP of $ 14 trillion, Japan with $5 trillion, Republic of Korea and already growing Indian economy, which is the fifth-largest in the world and seeks to transit from $2.89 trillion today to a $5 trillion dollar economy by 2024-25 and $10 trillion dollar by 2030.”

Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar, Pune International Centre President Raghunath Mashelkar and Maharashtra’s Minister of Tourism and Environment Aaditya Thackeray were also present at the event.