Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman delivered the keynote address on ‘Laying the foundations for a developed India ‘ViksitBharat by 2047’, at the Hoover Institution in California, U.S., on April 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday (April 22, 2025) said India plans to increase the share of the manufacturing sector from 12% to 23% over the next two decades, aiming to create jobs and drive economic growth.

India is focussing on 14 identified sunrise sectors like semiconductors, renewable energy components, medical devices, batteries and labour intensive industries, including leather and textile, to enhance the share of manufacturing in GDP, she said while speaking at Hoover Institution at Stanford University California.

For India, she said, “scaling up manufacturing is essential to absorb a youthful workforce, reduce import dependencies and build competitive global supply chains”.

Observing that the world is undergoing a complete reset with regard to manufacturing in the view of industrial revolution 4.0, she said, India, too, is witnessing changes.

“In India’s GDP, the service sector’s contribution is about 64% and if that is one side, at the lower end, the gig economy’s growth is rapid. In fact, if 7.1 million people are in the gig economy today, as of 2021-22 data, we expect that to go to 230 million by 2030. That’s not manufacturing,” she said.

“So the service sector disproportionately contributes both to the GDP and to employment… but that’s not to say manufacturing should be left aside. We have been hoping to increase the contribution of manufacturing from 12% to about 22-23%,” she said, replying to a question as to what share of jobs the manufacturing sector will account for in the next decade, or by 2047.

The government has identified 14 sunrise sectors – semiconductors, renewable energy components, medical devices, hydrogen mission, batteries and so on in order to strengthen manufacturing and introduced the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to promote them.

PLI is being offered to sectors that also have greater employment potential like electronic goods and similarly labour intensive sectors like textile and leather.

Highlighting the importance of manufacturing sector, she said, it binds societies and lends cohesion to communities by providing employment opportunities and financial strength to communities.

For long-term growth, she said, manufacturing emerges as a key engine for transformation.

“Manufacturing has historically been a cornerstone of the economic transformation of nations from 19th century Britain to 21st century East Asia. It creates a forward and backward linkages, catalyses skilling and pushes demand for infrastructure and governance reforms,” she said.

On the recent tariff-related actions by the Trump administration in the U.S. and its impact on India, Ms. Sitharaman said when there is stability in government, consistency in policy, a predictability in tax regime, investments and growth can be planned and executed to a large extent.

Campbell Wilson announced his decision to step down as Chairman of the Board of Air India Express on April 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

In a significant leadership shuffle, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson announced on Tuesday (April 22, 2025) his decision to step down as Chairman of the Board of Air India Express, the Tata Group’s low-cost carrier.

He will be succeeded by Nipun Aggarwal, Tata Sons appointee and Air India’s Chief Commercial Officer, who is already a member of the Air India Express Board.

Mr. Wilson shared the news via an internal platform for airline employees. The announcements comes in the backdrop of Air India concluding the merger of various airlines under the Tata fold – integrating Vistara with Air India and AirAsia India with Air India Express. This sets the stage for the next phase for further synchronisation of routes between the two airlines, which is the division Mr. Aggarwal oversees at Air India as the Chief Commercial Officer.

“With this structural work largely complete, the focus now shifts to fully leveraging and optimising the Group’s fleet, network, sales, distribution, and loyalty assets,” Mr. Wilson stated in his message. While Air India will be focused on metro-to-metro domestic routes and international connections, budget carrier Air India Express will target tier-1 and tier-2 cities, alongside short-haul international destinations.

Air India’s Chief Operations Officer, Capt. Basil Kwauk, who has joined the airline as an appointee of Singapore Airlines that has a 24.1% stake in Air India, will also replace Mr. Campbell as a member on the Board of Air India Express to ensure operational synergy across the group

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas (C) and IMF Research Department Deputy Director Petya Koeva Brooks (R) take questions as they speak on the “World Economic Outlook” during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings in Washington, DC, on April 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The IMF said Tuesday it now believed China’s economy will only grow by four percent this year, well below Beijing’s official target as it fights a mounting trade war with the United States.

China and the United States – the world’s two largest economies – are engaged in a mounting tit-for-tat trade row that has sparked global recession fears and rattled markets.

China faces tariffs of up to 145% on many products, with others receiving even higher levies. Beijing has responded with duties of 125% on US goods.

Also read | China retaliates with 125% tariffs against U.S. imports

Also contributing to downward pressure on growth in the Chinese economy are a persistent crisis in the property sector, local government debt and sluggish consumer spending.

In view of an increasingly uncertain landscape in which “downside risks dominate”, the International Monetary Fund said, the Chinese economy is expected to grow four percent this year.

The figure, which was published Tuesday in the fund’s latest World Economic Outlook report, is slower than the 4.6% expansion it predicted for China in January.

The forecast sits a full percentage point lower than Beijing’s official 2025 growth goal of around five percent – the same as last year and a figure considered ambitious by many economists given the headwinds with which China is grappling.

Growth next year is also now forecast by the IMF to be four percent, down from the previous projection of 4.5%.

The cuts reflect doubts about the ability of the world’s second-largest economy to hold up against mounting domestic pressures and heightened hurdles for exports from the manufacturing powerhouse.

“For China, the prolonged weakness in the real estate sector and its ramifications, including those for local government finances, have been key,” said the IMF.

The report noted that consumer confidence in the country has not recovered since plunging in early 2022, adding that China is among the tariff recipients most heavily affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent trade blitz.