India @WEF 2025 Davos: Showcasing growth, innovation, and economic leadership

India is set to make a big impression at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2025 in Davos beginning today, with its largest ever delegation participating in the marquee event. This delegation will include five union ministers, three state chief ministers and nearly 100 CEOs and leaders from across government, civil society and arts. 

As the world watches, India’s strong presence at WEF Davos signals a confident stride towards becoming a cornerstone of global growth and a trusted partner in building a more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous world.

India is set to make a big impression at the World Economic Forum in Davos beginning today, with its largest ever delegation participating in the marquee event. This delegation will include five union ministers, three state chief ministers and nearly 100 CEOs and leaders from across government, civil society and arts.

Shri Ashwani Vaishnaw (Union Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting, Electronics and IT) will be leading the delegation along with Shri C R Patil (Union Minister of Jal Shakti of India); Shri Chirag Paswan, Union Minister of Food Processing Industries; Shri Jayant Chaudhary (Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship), and Shri K Ram Mohan Naidu (Minister of Civil Aviation), will engage in discussions about inclusive growth, investment in infrastructure, and democratising technology. Before leaving for Davos, Shri Vaishnaw stated, ““In the World Economic Forum in Davos, there is a lot of interest in understanding our thought process, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic policy, digital transformation, and the way India has created a new digital architecture under the Digital India programme.”

The 55th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, set to take place from January 20-24, 2025, in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, is based on the theme, “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.”

With WEF 2025’s focus, India is at the forefront of exploring solutions across the five key workstreams—Reimagining growth, Investing in People, Rebuilding trust, Industries in the Intelligent age, and Safeguarding the Planet, according to a release by the government. High-level representatives from six Indian states — Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Kerala — will also participate in the delegation to showcase their industrial advancements, investment opportunities, and success stories as part of India’s ongoing economic transformation.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is expected to sign memoranda of understanding (MoUs) for data centres, automobiles, semiconductors, electric vehicles, electronics, steel, food processing, textiles, pharma, infrastructure and other sectors during his visit. Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu will promote Brand AP, including its human resources, infrastructure, government subsidies, stable leadership, and efficient business environment. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy will similarly represent Telangana at the forum.

WEF Forecasts for 2025

The World Economic Forum’s Chief Economists Outlook has a markedly subdued outlook, with a majority of chief economists (56%) predicting that the economy will weaken over the next year and just 17% expecting improvement. Economists are bullish on the US and South Asia, particularly India to maintain robust growth. In contrast, the growth outlook for Europe and China remains weak.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is projecting an annual average inflation of 4.3% in 2025, down from 5.8% in 2024. However, services inflation remains higher than goods inflation, particularly in advanced and emerging market economies. The strong short term growth outlook for the US, however, has also implied a significant rise in inflation expectations.

Interestingly, chief economists expect US policy to have a significant impact on the global economy.  Around 61% believe that this impact will be in the form of a long-term shift rather than a shortterm disruption. They expect
significant changes across trade, migration, deregulation, fiscal policy, industrial policy and foreign policy.

The global economic landscape is increasingly fragmented and thereby a major cause for concern. In goods trade, 94% of chief economists anticipate further fragmentation over the next three years. Significant majorities also expect increased barriers to labour mobility and transfers of technology and data. Geopolitical rivalries and domestic policy choices are viewed as the key drivers of current fragmentation trends, highlighting the growing importance of interactions between political and economic factors. The economists expect much higher fragmentation around labour mobility, finance (significantly less, due to cross-border financial flows), services, technology/data transfer, labour and goods.

In an interaction with NDTV, World Economic Forum (WEF) president and CEO Borge Brende, stated, “India has a great potential, and it is still growing pretty well, 6% this year. But there is no reason why India cannot pick up again and do 7%, 8%, provided that there are reforms on investments, infrastructure, investing in education and R&D.” He also expressed confidence that in a few years, India will be 20% of overall global growth, also crediting its huge startup ecosystem as a major contributor going forward.