Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman invited world buyers to arrange manufacturing bases, and expertise and innovation centres in India, urging them to leverage expertise and alternative to construct for the world.
Addressing a high-level Enterprise Roundtable with main buyers and enterprise leaders in Chicago on Friday (August 28, 2026), Ms. Sitharaman highlighted India’s broad-based progress, reform momentum and increasing alternatives for long-term funding.
Ms. Sitharaman emphasised that India’s funding proposition rests not on any single sector, however on the convergence of scale, progress, expertise, infrastructure, expertise, and sustained reform over the previous decade.
“The coverage surroundings is more and more centered on enabling companies to speculate, manufacture, innovate and broaden,” she mentioned on the roundtable organised by India’s Consulate Basic in Chicago in affiliation with U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Discussion board.
The Finance Minister invited world companions to co-develop, co-produce and construct for world markets.
She urged them to not think about India merely as a market to serve, however as a platform from which to construct for the world — whether or not as a producing base, expertise and innovation centre, client market or vacation spot for long-term infrastructure funding — leveraging India’s engineering expertise, manufacturing scale and expertise ecosystem.
The main target of the assembly was “Manufacture in India — for India and for the world”, with alternatives throughout manufacturing, AI & digital, monetary providers, infrastructure, meals processing, defence and superior applied sciences.
“As world corporations reassess provide chains and capital allocation, India provides not solely scale as a market, however growing depth as a long-term funding and working platform,” Ms. Sitharaman mentioned.
The Minister mentioned India’s Digital Public Infrastructure equivalent to Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ONDC and India Stack, has created platforms at inhabitants scale.
“The subsequent alternative is to construct higher-value companies in AI, engineering, analytics, product improvement, semiconductors and electronics, with India’s World Functionality Centres more and more changing into world innovation hubs,” she mentioned.
Ms. Sitharaman mentioned GIFT Metropolis was rising as a world monetary centre connecting world capital with Indian alternatives.
With 1,250 registered entities as of June 2026, it provides alternatives throughout banking, fund administration, reinsurance, plane and ship leasing, sustainable finance and different cross-border providers, Sitharaman mentioned, inviting world establishments to discover GIFT Metropolis as a gateway to India’s monetary ecosystem.
She mentioned with world provide chains being reconfigured, India provides a compelling mixture of a big home market and globally aggressive manufacturing capabilities.
The main target is transferring past meeting in the direction of deeper element manufacturing, engineering and superior applied sciences, supported by focused coverage measures together with production-linked incentives, the Minister mentioned.
Ms. Sitharaman mentioned India’s infrastructure build-out — from devoted freight corridors and railway modernisation to electrification and high-speed rail — provides alternatives throughout engineering, expertise, supplies, specialised gear and long-term institutional capital.
She mentioned the Nationwide Funding and Infrastructure Fund supplies a commercially pushed platform for world buyers to take part on this alternative.
Ms. Sitharaman mentioned India’s agricultural base, rising incomes and altering consumption patterns are creating alternatives throughout meals processing, automation, packaging, logistics and chilly chains, with potential to construct companies serving each Indian and world markets.
The Finance Minister mentioned by means of initiatives equivalent to Atmanirbhar Bharat and iDEX, India is constructing home capabilities in drones, autonomous programs and different superior applied sciences.
Ms. Sitharaman is on a six-day go to to the U.S. and is scheduled to attend the G-20 Finance Ministers’ assembly in Asheville in North Carolina and go to New York.
Printed – August 29, 2026 10:41 am IST
