New Delhi: India continues to be the fastest-growing major economy, with its GDP projected to expand by 7.3 per cent in 2026 (FY27) and 6.8 per cent in 2027 (FY28) due to robust domestic demand, increasing manufacturing capacity, and public infrastructure programmes, a United Nations (UN) report said on Friday.
The UNCTAD’s ‘Trade and Development Report 2026: the Geoeconomics of Development’ said that together, these factors sustain growth for the Indian economy despite heavy reliance on oil imports.
“India continues to post dynamic growth in household consumption, estimated at 6.9 per cent this year and 5.6 per cent next. These rates nonetheless mark a significant deceleration from previous years, as higher prices and input costs rein in expansion,” it said.
Growth in the developing world is bifurcating. A few large economies are driving global expansion, with India fastest among them at 7.3 per cent in 2026. Import-dependent economies absorb the shocks with far less fiscal room and rising debt servicing costs, the report mentioned.
Within sectoral integration, these economies are emerging as regional anchors, making their digital payment technology and infrastructure systems interoperable, often through knowledge-sharing rather than single products.
“The Indian digital public infrastructure (DPI) model, for example, involves agreements with 23 countries to share its architecture; technical cooperation is already operational in eight countries, including Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates,” said the report.
The report, presented in Geneva, projects global growth of 2.6 per cent for 2026, down from 2.9 per cent last year, even as trade in goods and services is expected to expand by about 4 per cent at constant prices. Developing economies are projected to grow by 4 per cent this year, down from 4.7 per cent in 2025.
“Rising economies of the Global South are becoming regional anchors, extending trade integration to new financial initiatives. This works best alongside a multilateral trading system that keeps non-discrimination and special and differential treatment at its core,” UNCTAD’s Acting Secretary General Pedro Manuel Moreno said.
Global trade reached a record $35 trillion in 2025. In 2026, higher trade values are being driven by price increases amid the energy shock, said the report.
Asia is projected to contribute 59 per cent of global growth in 2026, with India expanding at 7.3 per cent, China by 4.5 per cent, and Indonesia by 5.2 per cent.
(IANS)
