India has shown resilience during the current global economic downturn, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a press release, quoting ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda in Delhi at the end of a two-day visit.

The global economies have seen a downturn, which may become even deeper, and the recovery will take longer than earlier expected, but India’s economy was expected to grow at around 7% in 2008, according to the Manila-based bank.

“Although lower than last year’s 9% growth, this is nonetheless an impressive growth rate and a remarkable demonstration of India’s resilience,” said Kuroda, who also called for a “global solution” for the current financial crisis.

The impact of the global financial crisis will weigh more on China than India as China is heavily reliant on exports, which constitute 37% of the Chinese economy against 13% in the case of India.

“The extent of slowdown in China is much bigger than India because Chinese economy is more dependent on exports than Indian economy,” ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said in an interview to a news channel, adding that both China and India were not in recession.

Developing countries will have to restructure their economy and generate domestic demand besides sustaining high growth to avoid poverty, Kuroda said. Even if the global economy recovers from the worst recession, global economic structures will be changed considerably and particularly Asian countries cannot rely on exports.

Though the Chinese economy grew at 9% during 2008, its GDP growth rate reportedly fell to 6.8% during the October-December quarter and is expected to decline further. Indian authorities has expressed optimism that India has a good chance of overtaking China’s growth in the January to March quarter. India achieved 7.9% and 7.6% growth in the last two quarters (not including Q4 2008 to be released soon), according to provisional numbers.