June 17 - Foreign direct investment into India has surged to over US$25 billion in 2007-08 and the country's Foreign Exchange Reserve crossed US$341 billion as of on Tuesday, Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry the Hindustan Times reported.

To support his argument of the sustainability of GDP growth of over 8 per cent in the long run, he observed that India had the advantage of a huge young workforce (24 percent of the population are below the age of 28 years, 54 percent of the population are in the working group) and a very high savings and investment rate (over 35 percent of GDP).

Domestic demand and investment are the key drivers of growth and therefore insulate the Indian economy to a large extent from the sub-prime crisis.

Inflation, though a major concern, could be contained. The growth potential of services sector in India was enormous at US$200 billion offering employment to 40 million people, Kumar added while addressing the two-day India Investors' Summit in London,.