At Davos, BCG India Head Rahul Jain highlighted India’s strong 6-7% growth, domestic demand resilience, and geopolitical adaptability. He stressed accelerating manufacturing to 20%+ of GDP to potentially reach third-largest economy status by 2028-2030. Investments in clean energy, electronics, semiconductors, and AI—combined with supply-chain resilience and sustainability.
With India making a power-packed presence here for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, consultancy major BCG’s India Head Rahul Jain has said the Davos takeaway for the Indian business leaders is very clear that the competitiveness now comes from combining cost, scale and resilience. Jain also said that India is very likely to become the world’s third-largest economy by around 2030, which is a key India-related topic of discussion here during the summit.
“The key question is whether growth can be further accelerated to reach this milestone as early as 2028, and achieving this faster trajectory will depend largely on accelerating the manufacturing sector further from roughly 15-17 per cent of GDP today to 20 per cent and beyond,” Jain told PTI. “In that sense, the issue is less about if and more about when,” he said.
Jain, who is here for the five-day WEF Annual Meeting beginning Monday, said investments in sunrise sectors, such as clean energy, electronics, and semiconductors, are creating new growth engines in India. He also said scaling electronics, automotive components, renewable-energy hardware, data centres, and the emerging semiconductor ecosystem can deepen India’s integration into global value chains.
“Ultimately, success will depend on Indian firms’ ability to compete globally, delivering quality, reliability, export readiness, and compliance with tightening environmental standards. With disciplined execution, India is well-positioned to capture this opportunity and accelerate to become the world’s third-largest economy,” he said. Jain said the clearest message from Davos this year is that geopolitics now actively shapes trade and value-chains as much as economics. Tariffs, export controls, subsidies and regional blocs are remapping commerce, replacing the predictability of traditional trade rules with deal-based and alignment-driven trade, he said.
“In this environment, resilience has become as critical as efficiency, as firms move from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ supply chains. Businesses are increasingly building buffers, dual suppliers and regional hubs, even at higher cost, to ensure continuity,” he said. India has continued to grow at about 6-7 per cent, which is significantly above the global average of nearly 3 per cent. “This reflects a structurally stronger growth engine than most large economies. A key under-appreciated factor is the depth of domestic demand, supported by rising per-capita incomes, formalisation of the economy, and sustained public investment, which reduces reliance on external cycles,” he said.
At the same time, Jain said, import substitution and supply-chain localisation have improved India’s external balance and resilience to global trade disruptions. “These economic fundamentals are reinforced by political stability, credible macro-management, and institutional continuity, which anchor investor confidence. India’s ability to maintain diversified trade and diplomatic relationships across regions has further insulated it from global geopolitical volatility,” he said. He praised India’s relatively balanced model where domestic demand remains the primary shock absorber, without over-reliance on external demand.
Exports account for about 20-21 per cent of GDP, which is meaningful but still far lower than in highly export-dependent economies, allowing exports to act as a growth accelerator rather than the core driver in a fragmented trade environment, he said. Importantly, India is pursuing both ‘Make in India for India’ and ‘Make in India for the World’, with significant overlap in sectors, such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, auto components, renewables, EVs and engineering goods, where domestic scale also underpins export competitiveness.
On artificial intelligence becoming a key driver of global productivity and competitiveness, Jain said AI will be central, not incremental, to India’s next growth phase. Over the coming decade, it will drive productivity, competitiveness, and value creation across manufacturing, services, logistics, healthcare, and public service delivery, he added. India is already one of the most committed AI markets globally, but the scale of value creation will depend on how well ambition translates into execution, he pointed out.
“That confidence shows up clearly from our recent survey, where 88 per cent of Indian leaders expect positive ROI from AI, higher than the global average of 82 per cent, and 97 per cent say they will continue investing even if returns don’t materialise in the next 12 months,” he said. The real opportunity over the next decade is to make AI quietly useful, safe, human-centred and deeply embedded into everyday work rather than treated as a side project of the tech function, he said. On sustainability and climate transition, which are central to global economic discussions at Davos, Jain said India can pursue growth by embedding sustainability into its growth model.
