Manmohan Singh announced he will step down as India’s Prime Minister after elections in the spring. Singh has been in power for a decade and was the country’s Finance Minister for ten years before that. His policies helped India’s economy grow at a rapid rate — though in the past few years, inflation and corruption scandals have tarnished Singh’s administration.

“How big a shift this is going to be will really depend on whether his successor is capable of grabbing the reins as it were and pushing ahead with the next phase of reforms which are politically very difficult things to deal with” says Andrew Walker, economics correspondent with the BBC.

Under Singh’s influence, India’s economy opened up more to foreign investment.    

India’s growth slowed in part because of the global recession. But the country’s crumbling infrastructure – including poorly maintained roads and an unstable power grid – has probably stifled investment.

 “I think history will see Manmohan Singh as being the one who started the transformation,” says Walker, “taking India away from this heavily government-dominated economy to a market oriented system that has grown strongly and is capable of doing so for a lot longer under the right kind of leadership.”