Economic Survey: The shift India’s economy must make for resilience against forces it can’t control

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. This year’s Economic Survey has been published under the shadow of a geo-economic upheaval. Although it strikes an optimistic note on India’s economy, it offers a realistic assessment of the global risks we face.

It pegs GDP growth for 2026-27 in a range of 6.8%-7.2%, a bit less than this fiscal year’s estimated 7.4%, but robust in a high-flux context. It credits the Centre’s capex outlays and recent reforms for not just upping the economy’s pace of potential growth to an annual 7% from 6.5%, but also keeping inflation benign. Macro-level stability, however, no longer lures foreign capital—the “paradox of 2025," as the survey puts it.

For an economy that runs a trade deficit, this is a problem. Especially since India has been a victim of geopolitics, as it notes, citing our weak score on Lowy Institute’s Power Gap Index as a call to action. After all, while we have fared fairly well, global turmoil could yet kick in with a lag.

The survey offers a striking analysis of how 2026 might play out globally. In a best-case scenario, to which it assigns a 40-45% probability, it would be “business as in 2025," albeit marked by greater fragility and a thinner safety margin; while bouts of financial stress, trade friction and geopolitical strife would not lead to “systemic collapse," volatility could call for stepped-up state intervention. The second scenario, equally probable, risks a “disorderly multipolar breakdown." Strategic rivalry would intensify, armed conflicts go on and security frameworks come apart.