India’s economy is performing well but needs continued investment in infrastructure, trade agreements coming through, and ease of doing business to accelerate growth, Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said on Friday.“So we are in good shape, but can we grow faster? Yes, but for that, we will need to first put in place things like free trade agreements. We will have to keep investing in our own infrastructure and ease of doing business, so it’s not like growth somehow naturally happens,” Sanyal told ANI.He emphasised that sustained effort is needed to navigate the global economic environment and achieve growth of more than 7-8 per cent annually.“It requires effort, and we are putting in that effort, and the idea is that as and when we settle into the new environment, we can take full advantage of this and grow at more than 7-8 per cent. I mean there’s no reason we shouldn’t aspire to grow at 8 per cent every year,” he said.On trade, PM-EAC member Sanyal highlighted that India is actively engaging with new markets to build resilience amid turbulent global conditions.“Old order is breaking down and there will be a period of turbulence, but as you have noticed, we have navigated this reasonably well… We are signing free trade agreements with a large number of countries. We already have some with countries like Japan, Australia, the UAE, the UK, and so on,” he said.Talks are in advanced stages with the European Union and the United States, he added, noting that India is proactively positioning itself for long-term economic security and growth.“Our purpose is to provide as much of a cushion to our domestic economy so that we can keep growing,” he said.Earlier in May, Sanyal had attributed India’s 6–7 per cent growth to process reforms that don’t always make headlines but significantly enhance productivity. Speaking in Bengaluru at a seminar titled ‘Reforms: Way To Vikasit Bharath,’ he said hundreds of micro-level improvements were quietly driving results.“These are not reforms that you hear about in the headlines or in newspapers; unless you happen to be from that little sector, you probably don’t know anything about it. And yet it is the accumulation of these hundreds of small reforms,” he said, as quoted ANI.