India transitioned from 'emerging' status to 'pivotal' global economic force: Ministers in Davos

Davos: India has witnessed a real transformation in the last decade from an "emerging" status to a "pivotal" global economic force, driven by robust growth and widespread digital public infrastructure, according to young Indian ministers Harsh Sanghavi and K Rammohan Naidu.

Sanghavi, Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat, emphasised that for decades India was described as an emerging economy, but today that description no longer captures the reality.

Speaking at the same session organised by CII and KPMG, Union Civil Aviation Minister Naidu on Wednesday said India stands at the intersection of trust, scale, and innovation, offering reliability through its stable democratic institutions, resilience through its diversity and size, and relevance through solutions that deliver value for money.

According to Sanghavi, "India is no longer emerging, India is pivotal - pivotal to global growth, to resilient supply chains; pivotal to democratic stability and pivotal to the future of innovation, sustainability and inclusive development."

Echoing similar sentiments, Naidu said, "India is no longer defined as merely an emerging economy. India is becoming essential to the global economic order."

India's growth today is broad-based, digitally enabled, infrastructure-backed, and inclusive by design, Naidu said during the session on Wednesday organised on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

"This is the real transformation that India has witnessed in the last decade. And one of the most consequential changes in India's development model has been the creation of digital public infrastructure. Platforms like digital identity, real-time payments, and consent-based data sharing, and all these have given a certain kind of advantage for the Indian economy," he said.

The union minister said lower transaction costs, formalised millions of entrepreneurs and enterprises, enabled startups to innovate without needing massive capital and delivered inclusion, not as a charity, but as a capability.

"This is why India is no longer just a consumer market, but a digital global laboratory," he added.

KPMG International Global Chairman and CEO Bill Thomas said India's evolution over the years sums up the incredible momentum being built around physical and digital infrastructure.

Even more importantly, every single year, digital infrastructure has actually positioned India well, he added.

Yezdi Nagporewalla, CEO of KPMG in India, highlighted that the Indian government is reshaping opportunities and that India's greatest opportunities lie in domestic consumption and domestic capabilities.

"India, as a nation, as a geography, is in a very, very unique position today. And it is unique because, on one hand, we are building physical infrastructure. But we are parallelly building digital infrastructure," he added.

EXL Chairman and CEO Rohit Kapoor said, "Everybody is starting from scratch in terms of the implementation of AI models and implementing AI into the workflow and using it for business."

"So, this is the first time that a technological intervention is being made where nobody has any experience in terms of how this needs to be done. And therefore, the talent pool in India, instead of being directed on what to do, is actually being challenged in terms of how to apply AI correctly on behalf of the world," he said.

During the session, a CII-KPMG report titled 'Shift from emerging to pivotal: India in the new geoeconomic order' was also launched.

CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee emphasised the social dimensions of public investments and the inclusivity of India's growth.

He also highlighted the manufacturing growth in India driven by technology and AI, the labour reforms underway, and the simplification of the Goods and Services Tax.