Economic Survey: Can India sustain a high pace of growth in a highly uncertain world?

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The world has not experienced such high uncertainty as today since World War II ended 80 years ago. Can India sustain the high economic growth that it has maintained since the pandemic under such conditions—or even strengthen its growth potential? This is the central theme of the Economic Survey 2025-26 released on Thursday.

Without necessarily endorsing every point it makes, it must be recognized that the survey has emerged in recent years as a very detailed, evidence-based and sound analysis of the state of the Indian economy and the way forward, a ‘must read’ for any serious student of the Indian economy. It will take more than a few hours to do full justice to this detailed, 740-page document in this quick column. However, the chief economic advisor’s recent column in Mint, the survey’s preface and abstracts of each of the chapters provide its key takeaways.

Global uncertainty was already high prior to Donald Trump’s second term as US President. But he has taken it to a whole new level by upending the global economic and geopolitical order. The survey points out, correctly, that throughout this turmoil, India has maintained high growth (7.4% projected for 2025-26) along with very low inflation.

Macroeconomic stability has been supported by sustained fiscal-deficit reduction, high public infrastructure investment, strong bank balance sheets, a manageable current account deficit and low external debt. These earned India three credit rating upgrades last year. However, emerging market economies such as India that run current account deficits—even manageable deficits—face the risk of international capital inflows reducing or even reversing during periods of high geopolitical