Top 10 priorities for India's next growth phase

KPMG in India released this report at The Times Group’s ET Now – Global Business Summit, which presents a connected execution agenda that shifts the conversation from building stability and confidence to speed and quality in implementation.

The report brings together India’s recent advances across infrastructure, manufacturing, digital public platforms, MSME development and human capital, distilling them into a unified framework designed to accelerate the country’s progress toward becoming a developed economy by 2047.

India has established a solid foundation, and now the focus shifts to execution by converting investment into greater productivity and consequently competitiveness. Our country's growth will be shaped by deep manufacturing capabilities, skilled talent, robust MSMEs, efficient infrastructure, and cities prepared for the future. This report highlights the essentials: disciplined implementation, institutional resilience, and consistent effort to achieve Viksit Bharat by 2047.

Yezdi Nagporewalla

CEO

KPMG in India

India’s aspiration to become a developed nation by 2047 demands sustained execution over time, not periodic policy resets. This report is framed against that reality, in the context of current geopolitical uncertainty and shifting global trade barriers. It does not propose new schemes or reforms. Instead, it consolidates what is already underway across policy, investment, and institutional practice, and organises these efforts into a coherent execution framework aligned with the long-term vision of Viksit Bharat. The top 10 goals of the execution framework set out clear focus areas to guide delivery at scale.

Key highlights of the report:

Future-ready workforce

Building a future-ready workforce by strengthening the education-skilling-employment continuum, expanding apprenticeships, and scaling deep-tech capabilities – moving toward 50 per cent of the workforce formally skilled or reskilled and developing around 10 million advanced-technology professionals¹
Global manufacturing hub

Positioning India as a global manufacturing hub through plug-and-play clusters and Industry 4.0 adoption, with the ambition of raising manufacturing toward around 25 per cent of GDP and supporting long-term export goals of around USD2 trillion annually²
MSME

Enabling MSMEs to scale and lift productivity by improving access to credit and equity, accelerating digital adoption, and linking smaller firms to supply chains – supporting around 10 million MSMEs to grow³
Next-generation infrastructure

Strengthening the next-generation infrastructure backbone by sustaining investment at around 7-8 per cent of GDP while keeping logistics costs below 8 per cent of GDP⁴
Trade integration and export competitiveness

Expanding trade integration and export competitiveness through market diversification and FTAs, lifting India’s share of global trade to more than 5 per cent
Tier-II and Tier-III cities

Transforming Tier-II and Tier-III cities into growth engines through transit-led development and stronger institutional mechanism – building globally competitive cities and scaling integrated city-centric economic regions
Governance and process reforms

Accelerating governance and process reforms by simplifying compliance and enabling faster approvals to improve the global and domestic investors’ confidence and trust in the Indian market
Sunrise sectors

Building leadership in sunrise sectors – green hydrogen, semiconductors, space, defence manufacturing, rare earth minerals, AI-driven digital infrastructure, and bio-manufacturing
Social capital and inclusion

Strengthening social capital and inclusion by expanding women workforce participation, improving farmers livelihoods, increasing household earnings, advancing health outcomes to improve the overall ease of living
Public finance and investment effectiveness

Improving public finance and investment effectiveness by strengthening tax capacity, deepening PPPs and asset monetisation, and building stronger project pipelines of long-term investible projects

^[1]Economic Survey 2023-24, Government of India, 31 January 2024
^[2] National Mission on Manufacturing aims to double manufacturing contribution to GDP by 2035, Economic Times, 30 January 2026
^[3] Nandan Nilekani outlines four unlocks that can take India's growth to 8% from 6%, Money Control, 12 March 2025
^[4] From Growth Engine to Global Edge: Supercharging India’s Logistics, Press Information Bureau, 27 November 2025