‘India will turn into growth engine for world in coming years’: PM Modi at BRICS Business Forum

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted that India will soon become the growth engine for the world in forthcoming years and underscored that the country is well on its way to becoming an USD 5 trillion economy soon.

The Indian Prime Minister was addressing a gathering at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders’ Dialogue being held in South Africa’s Johannesburg.

“India will soon be the growth engine of the world. It’s because India turned calamity and tough times into economic reforms. In the last few years, the ease of doing business in India has improved due to the work done in the mission mode…We have focussed on public service delivery and good governance,” PM Modi said.

“Today, UPI is being used by street vendors to those at shopping malls…We are actively taking steps to make India a manufacturing hub in the areas of solar energy, wind energy, electric vehicles and green hydrogen. Today, in India, UPI is used at all levels…Today, among all countries in the world, India is the country with the highest digital transaction,” he elaborated.

Lauding the start-up ecosystem in the country, he elaborated, “India has the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, and there are over 100 unicorns in the country.”

“Today, India is the fastest-growing major economy globally. Despite a shaky world economy troubled by recession, India has emerged as the world’s fastest growing major economy. Soon, India will be a 5 trillion-dollar economy,” the Prime Minister told the delegates at the summit.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, PM Modi arrived in South Africa to attend the 15th BRICS summit and hold bilateral meetings with multiple world leaders. He is also scheduled to take part in the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogue events.

Arriving at Johannesburg, PM Modi got a rousing reception from the Indian diaspora settled there who chanted Vande Mataram and also greeted him with ‘rakhis’.

Later, he inspected a model of Swaminarayan Temple in Johannesburg. The construction of the temple will be completed by 2025.

The heads of state of India, China, and Brazil plus Russia’s top diplomat will gather from Tuesday to Thursday this week in Johannesburg for the 15th BRICS Summit. It will be the first in-person summit of BRICS comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, since 2019.

From South Africa, the Indian prime minister will travel to Athens, Greece on August 25 at the invitation of his Greece counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis.