The government has invited Singapore’s deputy prime minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, to speak on structural reforms and growth in India, along with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, at the Delhi Economic Conclave on Wednesday and Thursday.

This annual event of the finance ministry comes amid concern from business that after all the euphoria, the Narendra Modi government has not done much to take the economy back to a high-growth trajectory. Key reforms such as a higher foreign investment cap in the insurance sector, a national goods & services tax, land and labour law changes are stuck.

The conclave will be attended by economists Anne Krueger of Johns Hopkins University and Eshwar Prasad of Cornell University, among others. It will discuss ideas for taking the economy to a high growth path, after one of below five per cent for two years.

Officials said noted economist Jagdish Bhagwati, earlier slated to be present, would be unable to do so. Bhagwati, a professor of economics and law at Columbia University, was also scheduled to give a plenary lecture at last year’s programme but cancelled his visit due to health issues.

This will be the fifth in the annual series, started by former Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu. In 2011, the government had invited Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to speak at the event. In the first year of the conclave in 2010, it had invited Michael Spence of the Stern School of Business.

Shanmugaratnam, also finance minister of Singapore, was a speaker at the 2012 conclave. He has spent much of his earlier professional life at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, that country’s central bank and integrated financial regulator, where he was chief executive before entering politics in 2001.

Power Minister Piyush Goel will be lead speaker at a session on ‘Infrastructure and growth’. Former Reserve Bank of India governor Bimal Jalan will speak at a session on Inclusive growth and agriculture. The conclave will also have sessions on the changing global scenario: growth, trade and reforms, challenges and reforms in manufacturing, and reforms in the banking sector.