{"id":442718,"date":"2026-02-01T11:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T11:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442718\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T11:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T11:57:08","slug":"indias-finance-minister-sees-modest-fiscal-consolidation-in-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442718\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s finance minister sees modest fiscal consolidation in budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India&#8217;s government plans a modest improvement in its fiscal picture in the coming financial year, with reductions in the fiscal deficit and debt, while boosting manufacturing in sectors ranging from textiles to chips.<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her ninth consecutive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiabudget.gov.in\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">budget speech<\/a>, said on Sunday that the government sees its fiscal deficit falling to 4.3% of GDP in the 2026-27 financial year, down from 4.4% in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>Sitharaman said the government expects India&#8217;s debt-to-GDP ratio to fall to 55.6% in the coming financial year from 56.1% in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>The finance minister pointed to the wider uncertainties facing India.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today, we face an external environment in which trade and multilateralism are imperilled and access to resources and supply chains are disrupted,&#8221; Sitharaman said. &#8220;New technologies are transforming production systems while sharply increasing demands on water, energy and critical minerals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The government plans to encourage manufacturing in seven key sectors, including semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, capital goods, textiles and sports goods.<\/p>\n<p>India&#8217;s benchmark Nifty 50 stock index was down about 1.7% shortly after Sitharaman&#8217;s speech to parliament.<\/p>\n<p>In its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/29\/india-economy-growth-7-point-2-percent.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">economic survey<\/a> for the financial year 2026 released on Thursday, India said it sees its economy growing between 6.8% to 7.2% in the fiscal year 2027, outpacing most other major economies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a growing economy with expanding trade and capital needs, India must also remain deeply integrated with global markets, exporting more and attracting stable long-term investment,&#8221; Sitharaman said.<\/p>\n<p>Consultancy firm PwC India said the budget places the country &#8220;at a crossroads to push the nation into its next phase of transformation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Union Budget 2026-27 holds opportunities to set India&#8217;s role towards financial stability, while boosting businesses to be future ready \u2014 especially as they navigate the opportunities of AI adoption alongside challenges around talent, infrastructure, governance and trust,&#8221; PwC India said in an online commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s government plans a modest improvement in its fiscal picture in the coming financial year, with reductions in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[8073,449,28,122,101,208438,2344],"class_list":["post-442718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asia-economy","tag-breaking-news-economy","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-government-budget-deficits","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}