New York: Making an all-out bid to woo US investors, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government will take "hard" decisions to free the economy from bureaucratic controls and assured them those compulsions of coalition politics and Left support will not derail reforms.

The first Indian Prime Minister to address the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), world's largest bourse, he said India needed $150 billion investment on a conservative estimate for the next few years for a "quantum leap" in infrastructure sector over which he claimed there was maximum "political consensus".

"India needs America's support and active involvement in realising its dream (of faster economic growth and poverty eradication)," he told captains of American industry, representing a cross-section of 17 companies, which account for a trillion dollars of assets.

"Our economy has grown at an average of 6.0 per cent in the early 1990s and it is our expectation that economy can grow at 7-8 per cent," Singh said, adding, "We will take all the hard decisions to realise this ambitious target."

He said the Government had shown that in 1990s that the economy could move on high growth trajectory and "I wish to assure you that this is a task that can be accomplished and we will."

Singh said the country needed foreign investment both direct and institutional for attracting $150 billion in infrastructure in the next 4-5 years.

"We have all instrumentalities to carry forward the process of reforms."