Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India’s next phase of growth must be built on quality. Addressing the 53rd National Management Convention of the All India Management Association in New Delhi today, Mrs Sitharaman said that every factory floor, boardroom, service centre, Research and Development team must aim for higher standards, fewer defects, and greater reliability. She stressed that management professionals and corporate leaders should make quality consciousness a shared discipline, embedded in products, processes, services and institutions.
Ms. Sitharaman highlighted that the world economy is passing through an unpredictable period and the architecture of global trade and supply chains is also undergoing a parallel shift. The Finance Minister noted that resilience cannot mean retreating into economic isolationism in such an environment. She added that resilience means deep domestic capacity, fiscal strength and industrial scale for India, so that global shocks are absorbed without interrupting national development.
She further said that while global economic growth is slowing to below three percent, the Indian economy continues to expand at close to eight percent. She added that the latest quarter recorded stronger growth than most forecasts.
Ms. Sitharaman said this macroeconomic stability is prompting the world to re-rate India. She noted that on 2nd September 2026, the Japan Credit Rating Agency upgraded India’s long-term foreign currency and local currency issuer ratings from BBB-plus to A-minus, with a stable outlook, and raised the country ceiling to A.
