Over the past decade, India’s growth story was fast-paced, consistent and resilient. A strategized and calibrated agenda of economic reforms and key policies introduced by the Government has ensured steady growth and largely insulated the Indian economy from global economic headwinds.

India held General Elections in early 2024, with the re-election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the third consecutive term. This ensures continuation of significant economic policies promoting entrepreneurship, employment, and social welfare.

During 2023-24, the Indian economy maintained its robust growth trajectory, expanding at a solid rate of 8.2%–the world’s fastest-growing major economy. This growth was bolstered by significant progress in services, manufacturing, and construction sectors during the first quarter of 2024-25, sustaining the growth in the economy’s gross value added at 6.8%. The country’s total merchandise and services trade hit a record high of $777 billion, with key contributions from exports of electronic goods, pharmaceuticals, engineering products, and more. Additionally, foreign investments stay strong.

Launched in 2014 by the Indian Government, the Make in India initiative completed 10 years this year. It was aimed at transforming India into a global hub for design and manufacturing. The programme achieved major outcomes, including improved ease of doing business, innovation and infrastructure construction and increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows. FDI into India jumped 48% to $16.17 billion in April-June this fiscal on healthy inflows in services, computer, telecom and pharma sectors.

Similarly, the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes launched in 2020 for 14 sectors have attracted $16 billion in investments and increased manufacturing output to $130 billion as of June 2024. The initiative has also generated over close to 1 million direct and indirect jobs.

On ease of doing business, the country has significantly streamlined processes by reducing over 42,000 compliance requirements and decriminalising 3,700 provisions. The National Single Window System, India Industrial Land Bank, Gati Shakti initiative for multi-modal infrastructure construction, and strong focus on state level procedural reforms contribute to a facilitative environment for the entire life cycle of a business.

India has perfectly amalgamated financial inclusion with digitisation through the India Stack, a collection of open APIs and digital public goods designed to enable essential economic functions such as identity, data, and payments at a large scale. This digital public infrastructure is transforming sectors such as consumer finance, e-commerce, education, and others. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) by India is a real-time payment system to ease inter-bank transactions through mobile phones. This has been adopted by seven countries already.

Facilitating India’s growth and competitiveness, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as the apex industry chamber in India has been associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF) for over four decades now. CII has been instrumental in coordinating high-level participation of top Indian policymakers and industry leaders at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum every year. These annual interactions help take the Indian growth story to a global audience and facilitate multiple collaborations and initiatives engaging Indian corporates.

At the WEF annual summit in 2023, CII spearheaded a special participation with over 100 business and Government leaders, including from state governments, and a specific Business Lounge that hosted many interactions. A key initiative, Alliance for Global Good: Gender Equity and Equality, was launched with the support of WEF and major organisations as a global collective to empower women across the globe.

India, with its rapidly expanding economy, young and dynamic population, and strategic positioning in global markets, is increasingly being recognized as the next major global growth zone. As the world seeks new growth engines, India’s unique combination of factors positions it at the forefront of global economic expansion.