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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that the current year, 2026, has become even more challenging as the West Asia conflict evolved into a \u201csystemic tremor\u201d but underlined that India continues to stand out on the back of policies for strong fiscal management.<\/p>
Must Read:\u00a0Israel strikes Iran’s largest natural gas field; What it means for the region<\/strong><\/p> Addressing the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the finance minister noted that the year 2025 was monumental in more ways than initially thought, as trade fragmentation introduced severe uncertainty into global supply chains.<\/p> \u201cThis led to sharp downward revisions in global growth forecasts, but the year ended more optimistically than previously perceived, particularly for India,\u201d she said.<\/p> Must WATCH:\u00a0Iran War Impact On India: LPG Crisis, Price Hikes & Rising Cost Of Living Explained<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p> However, she said that this current year is even more challenging as we move from a landscape of \u2018shocks\u2019 to one of \u2018permanent volatility.\u2019 \u201cThe escalation of the Middle East conflict has evolved from a regional security concern into a systemic tremor, threatening the vital arteries of global energy and hardening the lines of a new, multipolar world order,\u201d the finance minister noted.<\/p> Highlighting that the global economy is witnessing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and public debt has surged, she said that India faces both external and internal challenges as it works toward the goal of a \u201cViksit Bharat,\u201d noting that factors such as the monsoon remain key domestic concerns.<\/p> However, while global public debt has surged to approximately $106 trillion \u2014 exceeding 95% of global GDP, the finance minister underlined that India continues to stand out. \u201cOur general government debt-to-GDP ratio (which includes states\u2019 debt), at approximately 81%, is the lowest among major economies after Germany,\u201d she said, adding that India is the only major economy where the IMF projects this ratio to fall significantly \u2014 to 75.8% by 2030.<\/p> \u201cA decade ago, our economy was one of the \u2018Fragile Five\u2019. We begin the quarter of this century as the fastest-growing major economy in the world,\u201d she further said.<\/p> She further said that India has fiscal space and room to expand capital expenditure, noting that the Reserve Bank of India has scope to cut interest rates and offer targeted support to affected sectors.<\/p> <\/div> Nirmala Sitharaman 2026 economic challenges, India fiscal policies 2026, India resilience amid global volatility, West Asia conflict impact India economy, global economic volatility 2026, India economic growth forecast, IMF projections India fiscal ratio, India GDP debt comparison 2026, Indian economy fastest-growing 2026, India's path to Viksit Bharat#Sitharaman #warns #039West #Asia #crisis #evolved #systemic #tremor #challenging0391775517815<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that the current year, 2026, has become even more challenging as the West Asia conflict evolved into a \u201csystemic tremor\u201d but underlined that India continues to stand out on the back of policies for strong fiscal management. Must Read:\u00a0Israel strikes Iran’s largest natural gas field; What it means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[22444,5680,22448,2151,22445,22439,22440,15774,22436,22441,22437,22443,22442,22435,3095,22446,22447,326,22438],"class_list":["post-6001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing","tag-039west","tag-asia","tag-challenging039","tag-crisis","tag-evolved","tag-global-economic-volatility-2026","tag-imf-projections-india-fiscal-ratio","tag-india-economic-growth-forecast","tag-india-fiscal-policies-2026","tag-india-gdp-debt-comparison-2026","tag-india-resilience-amid-global-volatility","tag-indias-path-to-viksit-bharat","tag-indian-economy-fastest-growing-2026","tag-nirmala-sitharaman-2026-economic-challenges","tag-sitharaman","tag-systemic","tag-tremor","tag-warns","tag-west-asia-conflict-impact-india-economy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}