India's economy in FY26 saw significant momentum from investment demand, with gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) accelerating to 8.2 per cent, while private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) also grew steadily, according to provisional estimates.
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran stated that India's economy is projected to return to a 7 per cent-plus growth trajectory by 2027-28 (FY28), or sooner if external conditions improve, despite near-term challenges from the West Asia crisis.
The report notes that equities had faced pressure from elevated valuation premiums, subdued nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and earnings growth, sustained foreign portfolio investor (FPI) selling, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure euphoria, and external shocks including US tariffs and a spike in crude oil prices due to geopolitical tensions in West Asia. However, several of these factors are now reversing.
India's economy registered a robust 7.7 per cent growth in the fiscal year 2025-26, an increase from 7.1 per cent in the previous year, with the January-March quarter alone seeing a 7.8 per cent expansion.
Supported by strong buoyancy in public sector capital expenditure (capex), growth in infrastructure investment is expected to accelerate in 2025-26 (FY26) compared to 2024-25 (FY25), according to the First Advance Estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for FY26 released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Wednesday.
The downward surprise in Q2 stemmed from a stronger-than-anticipated drag from gross fixed capital formation and marginal weakness in private final consumption expenditure. In Q3, projection errors emanated mainly from a steep unanticipated contraction in gross fixed capital formation, which was the deepest in the new series of GDP.
The Indian economy is likely to grow at 7.4 per cent in 2025-26, up from 6.5 per cent in the previous fiscal, mainly on account of better performance of manufacturing and services sectors, as per the government data released on Wednesday.
The Indian economy recorded a six-quarter high growth of 8.2 per cent in July-September, as factories churned out more products in anticipation of a consumption boost from the GST rate cut, according to government data.
India's economy is likely to grow by 6.5 per cent in the current and the next financial year, an EY report said, attributing lower than anticipated expansion in the September quarter to fall in private consumption expenditure and gross fixed capital formation. Real GDP growth eased to a seven-quarter low of 5.4 per cent in July-September -- the second quarter of the current 2024-25 fiscal year.
India's economy experienced a growth of 7.8 per cent during the October-December quarter of 2025-26, according to the new series of national accounts with 2022-23 as the base year.
The key question is how much of the latest growth record represents recovery from the 2020-2021 downturn, and what is the sustainable growth rate now, asks T N Ninan.
Indian economy grew by 7.8 per cent in April-June -- the highest in five quarters -- before the disruptive US tariffs were imposed.
India no longer needs big ticket reforms but small and basic ones to drive the growth forward, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said on Monday. Addressing the media after the Economic Survey 2023-24 presented in Parliament, Nageswaran said there is a need to pursue all possible approaches without any ideological orientation. "In terms of the kind of reforms that we need to do, it is no longer big-ticket reforms that dominate your front pages but more about grunt works.
At a time when the government is nudging the private sector to ramp up its capital expenditure (capex), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is poised to kick-start the first-of-its-kind annual survey on the status of private sector capex from next month. "The inaugural edition of the annual exercise will start in October and will be completed by December. "The results will be made public by February next year," said Geeta Singh Rathore, director general, National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), at a data users' conference on Thursday.
Economists, however, caution against interpreting the data as a broad-based revival
The cumulative impact of flagging investments that set in during 2011-12 has taken the shine off the India growth story.
As India's investment rate is estimated to decline this financial year, industry chamber CII has asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to give a boost to investments in the forthcoming Budget, but economists believe a rollback of stimulus may continue.
The big domestic economic challenge today is the slowdown in growth and infrastructure investments.
RBI moves will further add to corporate woes. Harsh Mariwala, the president of industry body Ficci, said, "I am afraid that with such a hawkish monetary stand, the investment environment would become even more difficult. Growth and employment targets will certainly not be achieved."
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday pegged India's growth this financial year at 6.5-7 per cent. He added the country had taken various steps to boost investment, the results of which would be seen in six months.
For one, growth was not primed by government cash transfers like salary hikes and NREGA payments alone. Gross fixed capital formation (investment in lay terms) picked up sharply in this period compared to the previous quarter.
"This has been powered by a rebound in the agricultural sector following the drought in 2009-10, and a sharp pick-up in private consumption and gross fixed capital formation," CMIE said.
manufacturing apparently grew at over 5 per cent.
The sudden stop in economic activity led to a sharp decline in employment-intensive sectors like construction, manufacturing and trade, hotels, transport etc.
The fall in investment rate is not surprising. But putting it together with rising share of wages in GVA, it shows that the focus is more on productivity, rather than adding new capacity, says Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India.
India Inc's investment project announcement falls to Rs 11.3 trillion. In the coming months, the pace of investments would depend on how soon consumption demand picks up and private sector investment ramps up investment in infrastructure.
Investment growth moderated slightly in the economy during the first quarter (Q1) of the current financial year (2023-24, or FY24), notwithstanding the front-loading of capital expenditure (capex) by the Centre. This was also the case despite a pick-up in demand during the period after two dismal consecutive quarters. Although growth in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), representing investment, fell to a five-quarter low of 7.96 per cent, the comparison with the first two quarters of the previous year is a bit askew due to the low year-on-year (Y-o-Y) base of those periods.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) slim majority in Lok Sabha may delay more far-reaching economic and fiscal reforms that could impede progress on fiscal consolidation, Moody's Ratings said on Wednesday. NDA securing a majority in the general elections will give a historic third term for Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India. "We expect policy continuity, especially with regards to budgetary emphasis on infrastructure spending and boosting domestic manufacturing, to support robust economic growth.
Since 2000-01, the Indian economy has shown the tendency of being unable to absorb all domestic savings as investments.
This is mainly due to GST impact on manufacturing and subdued farm output.
Looking under the hood, I see India on the terrible, but commonplace, road to prosperity failure, warns Rathin Roy.
Against the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) projection of 7.1 per cent, India's first quarter (Q1) 2024-25 (FY25) gross domestic product (GDP) growth came in at 6.7 per cent. This is in line with market expectations and significantly lower than the 7.8 per cent recorded in the fourth quarter (Q4) 2023-24 (FY24) and 8.2 per cent in Q1FY24. The quarter witnessed decreased government consumption and investment spending due to the parliamentary election.
The critical information in the first quarter (Q1) gross domestic product (GDP) data relates to the proximity of real and nominal GDP growth rates at 7.8 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. The implicit price deflator (IPD)-based inflation is only 0.2 per cent. This phenomenon has repeated after fifteen quarters.
Indian economy had grown at 6.6 per in 2013-14.
The contraction in November this year is the second biggest fall in the current financial year.
India Inc could be embarking upon a new phase of capital expenditure (capex) cycle, observed analysts, and suggest its revival would lead to a rerating of industrial stocks. Assisted by a property upcycle, analysts at Jefferies said several government initiatives were likely to drive capex. Indicators, they said, include a private project announcement at Rs 25 trillion for 2022-23 (up 150 per cent from pre-pandemic levels) and credit growth at about 16 per cent, which is closer to pre-pandemic highs.
Enthused by higher than expected GDP numbers in the fourth quarter of 2022-23, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Wednesday said India's economic growth may exceed the initial estimate of 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal and the country can look for another year of solid economic performance.
It is difficult to reconcile the GDP numbers with other economic indicators.
Chief statistician T C A Anant says growth figure might go up once indirect tax data is fully in, however, he agrees that private expenditure is yet to pick up
C Rangarajan, chairman, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council tells Business Standard that the measures taken by the government will lead to economic growth of at least 6 per cent in FY14 against a decadal-low growth of 5 per cent in FY13.
