New Delhi, Aug 13 - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to constitute a ministerial group to look into the issue of high aviation fuel prices in India that has exacerbated the current crisis of the industry.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel made the announcement here after briefing the cabinet about the prevailing situation in the domestic and global aviation industry, including the comparative cost of fuel in India and elsewhere.

He said the $14-billion Indian aviation industry will grow at around 8.5 percent annually over the next five years after logging a decline of 4.7 percent last year, after a robust growth of 46.4 percent in 2006 and 32.6 percent in 2007.

'India's per capita number of trips is 0.02, compared to 0.1 for China, which is five times higher, and 2.2 trips for the US. So there is a huge potential in our country,' the minister said after a presentation to the cabinet.

'Conservatively, my ministry has estimated - also assuming no further shocks - a growth of 8.5 percent year-on-year for India's aviation industry till 2015,' the minister said.

'India's population in million per aircraft - this is an interesting piece of statistics - is 2.89,' he said, adding it 1.14 for China, 0.63 for Brazil, 0.31 for South Africa, 0.24 for Japan, 0.11 for Germany, 0.07 for Britain and 0.05 for the US.

'This shows huge potential to increase aircraft penetration in the country, even when compared to (other) Asian countries.