Editor’s Note
This article highlights a key survey indicating strong business confidence in India’s economic trajectory, with a majority of industry leaders forecasting robust GDP growth for the coming years.
New Delhi, January 22: A recent FICCI pre-budget survey has revealed strong optimism within the industry, with nearly 80 percent of participants expressing confidence in India’s growth prospects.
Approximately half of the respondents believe that GDP growth will remain between 7-8 percent in the financial year 2026-27, reaffirming faith in India’s medium-term fundamentals despite global uncertainties.
According to the FICCI survey, the industry also highlighted the importance of fiscal prudence, with about 42 percent of participants expecting the fiscal deficit target of 4.4 percent of GDP for FY 2025-26 to be achieved, strengthening confidence in the government’s fiscal consolidation plan.
As per the survey findings, three key macroeconomic priorities have clearly emerged for the Union Budget 2026-27 – employment generation, continued emphasis on infrastructure, and strong support for exports. Respondents prioritized sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, defense, and MSMEs.
The report suggests that the government should continue to emphasize manufacturing and capital expenditure.
Furthermore, the government should increase the share of capital expenditure in defense allocations to 30 percent to modernize frontline assets, UAVs, counter-UAV systems, EW systems, and AI-enabled capabilities.
Increasing the drone PLI allocation to Rs 1,000 crore and establishing a Rs 1,000 crore drone research and development fund will promote this emerging sector.
To strengthen India’s export performance and integration into global value chains, respondents emphasized the need to simplify trade facilitation and customs procedures, reduce logistics and port-related bottlenecks, and strengthen export incentives and refund mechanisms.
It has been recommended that the Union Budget increase allocations under the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme to improve export competitiveness. The industry is also awaiting announcements on SEZ policy reforms and further rationalization of customs tariffs in the budget.
Customs tariffs can be further rationalized by consolidating them into three tiers. This would simplify the system, bring certainty, and reduce compliance costs, the FICCI survey said.
On the direct taxes front, the key expectations of respondents were to simplify compliance, provide tax certainty, and improve dispute resolution and litigation management.