RBI's Poonam Gupta: IMF puts India top at 7% as emerging-market buffers thin
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readReserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Poonam Gupta spoke on 28 October at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit in Mumbai about how India and other emerging markets stand in the IMF's latest outlook; the BIS published the address on 29 October.
She noted that the October 2026 World Economic Outlook projects global growth of 3.1% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027, below the 2000 to 2019 average of 3.7%, but that actual growth has beaten the IMF's projections in each of the past three years. The 2026 upgrade came from advanced economies, raised by 0.4 percentage point to 2.1%, mostly from technology exporters such as Korea, while the projection for emerging market and developing economies was trimmed by 0.1 point to 3.7%. India's 2026-27 forecast was raised by 0.6 point to 7.0%, the highest among the 21 economies with GDP above $1 trillion in 2025.
On why the world has held up, she cited the IMF's explanation: cushions built by households and firms, better policy frameworks, and offsetting forces. In emerging markets, more independent central banks, better-implemented monetary policy and more flexible exchange rates explain, by the IMF's estimate, slightly more than half of their better output performance in global risk-off episodes. The IMF estimates the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz will take 0.3 percentage point off global growth in 2026, against 0.9 point had oil supply been less flexible and energy use less efficient.
India grew 7.8% in 2025-26 and 7.8% again in April to June 2026, driven by private consumption and fixed investment, which rose 11.9%, its fastest in the new GDP series. Gupta also flagged the IMF's warning that the margins of adjustment are narrowing and that governments must rebuild the fiscal space they have used.
What it means
The speech pairs a strong India forecast with a caution that applies to all emerging markets: the buffers that absorbed this year's shocks have been partly spent and need rebuilding before the next one.