World Bank President Ajay Banga has said India holds the potential to grow beyond its current 7–8 per cent trajectory, calling the country's recent economic performance robust even as global headwinds — including energy pressures, trade uncertainty, and the effects of El Niño — weigh on emerging markets. Banga made the remarks on the sidelines of the G20 Finance Ministers' meeting in Asheville on 2 September.

India's Growth Performance

Banga described India's current output as a sign of underlying economic strength. 'India is now delivering regularly seven to 8 per cent growth, that's pretty good. And I think there's opportunity to go even beyond that,' he said. He noted that the composition of growth was equally encouraging — services, exports, and investment had all held up within the headline figure. 'This is a pretty robust performance that India has shown,' he added.

The Jobs Imperative

The World Bank chief stressed that sustaining high growth rates would not be sufficient on its own. The more pressing challenge, he argued, is converting economic momentum into employment and opportunity for India's large youth population. 'You need to convert all this into the opportunity and hopes and aspirations of young people,' Banga said. He outlined three pillars he considers essential for job creation: physical and human infrastructure, regulatory reform, and the mobilisation of private capital.

Infrastructure and Skills Gap

On infrastructure, Banga acknowledged India's substantial ongoing work in roads, bridges, airports, power, water, and digitisation. However, he flagged that the education and skilling ecosystem requires closer alignment with future labour market demands. 'The whole skilling and education ecosystem in India needs to be tuned even closer to where the jobs are going to come from in the future and what the private sector would want to do with you,' he said. He identified infrastructure, agriculture, primary healthcare, tourism, and value-added manufacturing as sectors with the highest job-creation potential, noting India's particular strengths in minerals, metals, and fashion.

Regulatory Reform and Private Capital

Banga cited recent central government changes to labour laws as meaningful progress, while noting that their real-world impact would depend on state-level implementation. 'It needs to get implemented state by state for the change to be seen at the ground level, but it's great progress over where we were a few years ago,' he said. He was unambiguous on the role of the private sector: 'Jobs are created in the private sector. Government enables and the private sector creates.' Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) would be central to that effort, he added.

World Bank's India Engagement

Banga said he had discussed tourism and MSME opportunities directly with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He also disclosed that the World Bank had moved swiftly to support Indian businesses during the disruption caused by the war in Iran, pumping 'almost three billion plus of financing into the MSME sector in India for trade finance.' He further noted that India was increasingly emerging as a source of development knowledge for other nations — particularly through its digital public infrastructure and agricultural innovations — as it advances toward its 2047 development goals.