Mumbai, Sep 3 (IANS) The 7.8 per cent GDP growth recorded by India in the first quarter of the financial year 2026-27 is a pleasant surprise amid global geopolitical headwinds and will reinforce the confidence of both domestic and international investors in the country’s growth potential, NAREDCO President Kamlesh Thakur said on Thursday.
Thakur said India was not insulated from developments in the global economy and was facing several geopolitical challenges affecting countries across the world. Despite these headwinds, the country managing to achieve 7.8 per cent growth demonstrated the resilience of the Indian economy.
“First of all, it's a pleasant surprise. We are facing a headwind of geopolitical issues which is now affecting the whole world, including India. India is not detached from what is happening in the global scene,” Thakur said.
He said the strong growth number would strengthen investors’ faith in India’s ability to sustain economic momentum and deliver on its development ambitions. Thakur also linked the performance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s focus on “Gati and Shakti”, saying the approach was translating into visible economic activity.
On Maharashtra’s ‘Mumbai 3’ vision, Thakur described the initiative as a “brilliant concept” and said it could create a wider ecosystem around education, healthcare, airports and urban development.
He said Chief Minister’s advisor Kaustubh Dhavse had recently made a presentation on developing an Edu City and Medi City under the vision, adding that contracts had already been signed with 12 international universities.
Thakur said such initiatives could help reduce the need for Indian students to travel abroad for higher education, thereby reducing the financial outflow from the country. He said the geopolitical situation also made it important to build strong domestic ecosystems for education and other services.
He welcomed the involvement of the Adani Group in supporting the ‘Mumbai 3’ vision of the Maharashtra government, saying the development of airports, seaports and Aero Cities could create an integrated ecosystem around major infrastructure projects.
“Aero Cities in so many cities they are doing,” Thakur said, underlining the potential of such developments to transform the economic landscape around airports.
