India poised for over 7% growth in FY26, says CEA after robust Q2 GDP numbers

New Delhi [India], November 28 (ANI): The Indian economy is poised to register growth north of 7 per cent in the current fiscal 2025-26, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran said Friday, in a post-GDP release presentation.

In the Economic Survey for 2024-25, tabled in Parliament on January 31, the real GDP growth for 2025-26 was projected to be between 6.3 and 6.8 per cent, a projection that has not been revised since then.

"We can state comfortably that full year GDP growth would be north of 7 per cent...," CEA Nageswaran told reporters in a virtual presentation. Asked if he would provide a specific GDP estimate for 2025-26, he did not specify a number but reiterated that growth would be above 7 per cent.

In his presentation, the CEA also noted that central government capex and bank credit growth were robust in the September quarter, at 30.7 per cent and 10.8 per cent, respectively.

The government capex has been higher by 49.4 per cent over the average capex in Q2 of the last 3 years, the CEA said in his presentation.

Delving into the fact that India is currently experiencing low inflation, he said the low inflation numbers are not reflective of weak aggregate demand.

India's retail inflation fell sharply to 0.25 per cent in October 2025, the lowest year-on-year inflation of the current CPI series. The impact of the GST reduction was visible across all sectors.

As part of his remarks, CEA Nageswaran said that the Indian economy does stand out as a "relative oasis of tranquillity, stability and growth" amid the current uncertain global environment.

According to him, the Indian economy has shown dynamism and the cumulative positive impact of the last 10-11 years of investments in physical and digital infrastructure.

He also commended exporters' resilience to the tariff shock and the policy actions taken since June 2024, including direct and indirect tax relief.

"(The economic robustness is also due to) continued trust in public investment, deregulation in the union and state governments, employment-linked incentive schemes that have been announced, and continued credit support to micro, small and medium enterprises and also nano-enterprises through various schemes," Nageswaran said in his concluding remark.

"I think all of these things are supporting the economy undertaken amidst macro stability, financial, fiscal prudence and overall financial market and banking sector health. We spoke about the risk factors predominantly coming from the global side. We will continue to obviously monitor them. But I think in the current uncertain global environment, the Indian economy does stand out as a relative oasis of tranquillity, stability and growth. And that is good news that we need to take away from this GDP data release," Nageswaran concluded.

India's real GDP has been estimated to have grown by 8.2 per cent in the July-September quarter of the current financial year 2025-26, compared with 5.6 per cent in the same quarter of the previous fiscal, official data showed Friday.

The Q2 numbers, according to Nageswaran, were what he said "outside the range of most of the optimistic estimates" of many.

The National Statistics Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), has today released the Quarterly Estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the July-September quarter.

India's nominal GDP grew at an 8.7 per cent rate during the September quarter, data showed today.

Real GDP has registered an 8.0% growth rate in H1 (April-September) of FY 2025-26, compared with 6.1% in H1 of FY 2024-25.

In the April-June quarter, India's real GDP grew 7.8 per cent, up from 6.5 per cent in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. India's nominal GDP grew at an 8.8 per cent rate during the said quarter.

In 2024-25, the Indian economy grew by 6.5 per cent in real terms. The Reserve Bank of India had projected 6.5 per cent GDP growth for the fiscal year 2024-25. In 2023-24, India's GDP grew by an impressive 9.2 per cent, continuing to be the fastest-growing major economy.

According to official data, the economy grew 8.7 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively, in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

To realise the vision of 'Viksit Bharat', a developed nation dream by 2047, India will need to achieve a growth rate of around 8 per cent at constant prices, on average, for about a decade or two, the Economic Survey document for 2024-25, tabled on January 31 this year, had said. (ANI)

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