- Tuesday, April 22, 2025
The finance minister said that sustaining India’s growth momentum calls for a fresh approach of bold reforms, adaptive strategies in line with changing global landscape
By: India Weekly
INDIA’S quest for sustained growth over the next two decades hinges on a new paradigm, driven by bold reforms, enhanced domestic capabilities, and strategic institutional collaborations suited for the evolving global landscape, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday (21).
The last two Union Budgets have laid the groundwork for this transformation, with a clear multi-sectoral policy agenda, she said, while speaking at Hoover Institution at Stanford University California.
She further said a significant thrust on infrastructure development has also created a strong foundation for manufacturing-led growth by bolstering investor confidence over the last 10 years.
This has been enabled by a more than four-fold increase in the union government’s capital expenditure between 2017-18 and the 2025-26 Budget, she said.
Going forward, the finance minister said, sustaining India’s growth momentum calls for a fresh approach of bold reforms, adaptive strategies in line with the changing global landscape.
“Over the next two decades, sustaining India’s growth momentum calls for a fresh approach grounded in bold reforms, stronger domestic capacities, renewed institutional partnerships, and adaptive strategies suited for the evolving global landscape,” she said.
Sitharaman is on a five-day trip to the United States, where she will join the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, according to an Indian government statement.
She is also scheduled to meet the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and is expected to speak to officials at the United States Trade Representative’s office.
Her visit comes in a week of multiple engagements between the United States and India that will focus on trade, as New Delhi rushes to avoid steep US tariffs with an early trade deal and boost ties with the Donald Trump administration.
Officials in New Delhi are hoping to firm up an agreement with Washington within the 90-day pause on tariff increases announced by Trump on April 9 for major trading partners, including India.
India’s chief negotiator for the deal, Rajesh Agrawal, is expected to make a three-day trip to the United States starting Wednesday, an Indian official said.
India is open to cutting tariffs on more than half of its imports from the U.S., which were worth a total $41.8 billion in 2024, as part of a trade deal, Reuters has reported.
The US is India’s largest trading partner and their two-way bilateral trade reached $129 billion in 2024, with a $45.7 billion surplus in favour of India, US government trade data show. (Agencies)
