India’s Inclusive Growth and Global Trade Leadership Reaffirmed at FICCI Leads 2025

At the FICCI Leads 2025 summit, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal delivered a keynote address that reaffirmed India’s position as the world’s fastest growing large economy. He outlined India’s commitment to inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth while emphasizing the need for global cooperation to achieve shared prosperity.

India’s Resilient Growth Journey

Shri Goyal highlighted that India’s economic journey has been defined by resilience and adaptability, consistently turning crises into opportunities. From addressing the Y2K challenge to weathering the global financial crisis and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, India has shown remarkable capacity to rebound.

During the pandemic, India managed to administer over 2.5 billion vaccine doses, ensured food security for its citizens, and emerged stronger with one of the fastest recoveries among large economies. This resilience, he stressed, forms the first pillar of India’s growth story.

Inclusive Growth Transforming Lives

The Minister emphasized that India’s growth is deeply inclusive, driven by policies that uplift communities and expand access to basic infrastructure. In the past decade, over 40 million families have been provided with free homes equipped with water supply, electricity, road connectivity, digital access, and cooking gas.

Such initiatives have powered social transformation, contributing to lifting 250 million Indians out of poverty. Rising aspirations, growing incomes, and access to modern infrastructure are making inclusive development a cornerstone of India’s success story.

Global Engagement Through Strong Leadership

The third pillar of India’s growth, Shri Goyal noted, is action-oriented leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has allowed India to engage globally from a position of confidence.

India has successfully concluded Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Mauritius, the UAE, Australia, and EFTA nations. The EFTA agreement alone is expected to bring in USD 100 billion in investments over the next 15 years and create one million direct jobs.

Recent achievements include a comprehensive FTA with the United Kingdom, while negotiations with the European Union are at an advanced stage. Talks with Oman, the United States, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, and other nations are also progressing, potentially driving USD 500 billion (₹45 lakh crore) in investments into India’s economy across innovation, manufacturing, and services.

Innovation, Markets, and Sustainability

India’s stock markets, among the best performing globally over the past two decades, reflect investor confidence in India’s fundamentals. Shri Goyal pointed out that India’s USD 12 billion investment in R&D and innovation delivers outcomes comparable to over USD 100 billion worth of work in Europe or the UK, underscoring India’s cost efficiency and talent base.

He emphasized that sustainability is not an imported concept but deeply rooted in India’s cultural ethos, with reverence for rivers, forests, and mountains. When coupled with frontier technologies like AI, quantum computing, and machine learning, sustainability becomes a multiplier for growth and innovation.

A Future Shaped by Partnerships and Inclusivity

With a robust democratic framework, safe investment climate, and a young, aspirational population, Shri Goyal expressed confidence that India will remain the world’s fastest growing large economy for decades to come.

India’s growth story, he stressed, is not just about domestic progress but also about global prosperity, free trade, and improving the quality of life worldwide. Platforms like FICCI Leads play a vital role in fostering international collaboration and innovation.

Concluding his address, Shri Goyal declared: “The future is ours to capture and lead, driven by resilience, inclusivity, and global partnerships.”