GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

Understanding the Indian macroeconomy necessitates high-frequency, robust data, particularly given the recent onset of the conflict in West Asia and the persisting effects of the 2025 US tariff regime. Traditional aggregate statistics suffer from measurement lags, but corporate earnings releases ...

Tariffs on gold, silver, platinum

INDIA · Report · 13 May 2026

The Indian macroeconomy is navigating a dual external shock originating from the Persian Gulf: a contraction in export demand alongside a pronounced escalation in petroleum import costs. The optimal macroeconomic adjustment to these terms-of-trade frictions operates through the price mechanism, s...

The macroeconomic adjustment to the 2026 external shock

INDIA · Report · 13 May 2026

The Iran conflict was a terms-of-trade shock to the Indian economy: to energy prices and to the export of goods, services and expatriate labor to Persian Gulf. The macroeconomic vulnerability in India is located in the institutional reluctance to permit price-clearing mechanisms to operate, to de...

Debates swirling about five sectors

INDIA · Report · 06 May 2026

We analyze Indian export dynamism beyond traditional low-cost sectors such as business process outsourcing, garment manufacturing, and basic IT services. We examine five emerging industries, the subject of contemporary debates, where private Indian firms may have the ability to achieve global mar...

Transmission of the West Asia petroleum shock through non-price mechanisms

INDIA · Report · 17 Apr 2026

The Iran war is an important shock for the Indian macroeconomy, through prices and quantities of petroleum and petrochemicals. With international crude benchmarks rising by approximately 50 percent, and maritime transit through the Strait of Hormuz fundamentally impaired, India’s access to vital ...

Macroeconomic adjustments to the energy shock: the exchange rate and the bond market

INDIA · Report · 06 Apr 2026

The macroeconomic adjustment to the 2026 energy price shock has been complicated by the authorities’ preference for a heavily managed exchange rate. Following the geopolitical escalation involving Iran, India’s terms of trade have suffered, dictating a textbook real depreciation. While the USD/IN...

Implications of the war in Iran

INDIA · Report · 16 Mar 2026

Indian macroeconomics is facing a multi-faceted external shock, one that requires a large adjustment of the general equilibrium. There is broad agreement on the core vulnerabilities: net reliance on imported hydrocarbons, exposure to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) export markets, and the integrit...

Interpreting the US trade agreement

INDIA · Report · 09 Feb 2026

The interim trade framework between the United States and India, concluded in early February 2026, is an important moment in New Delhi's strategic calculus. While the agreement de-escalates a threatened trade war—reducing U.S. tariffs on Indian goods from a potential 50 percent aggregate to a uni...

Indian exports to the US under high tariffs

INDIA · Report · 26 Jan 2026

In late 2025, the Indian export sector faced a severe shock: the imposition of a 50-percent tariff by the United States for goods other than drugs or electronics. While early optimism relied on the personal chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump to mitigate these measures, the ...

Legal risk in India: the Mauritius Treaty and the rule of law

INDIA · Report · 20 Jan 2026

On January 15, 2026, the Supreme Court of India delivered a verdict against Tiger Global, ruling that its Mauritius-based entities were liable for capital gains tax on the 2018 sale of Flipkart shares to Walmart. This decision marks the final end of the residence-based taxation regime that had on...

A profound change in the financing patterns of non-financial firms

INDIA · Report · 12 Jan 2026

A profound structural shift has redefined the capital structure of Indian non-financial firms, characterized by historic deleveraging. Data for FY25 indicates the debt-to-equity ratio for unlisted companies has fallen to 1.01—the lowest since liberalization in 1991—while the interest coverage rat...

The 2026 GDP revision: restoring the signal

INDIA · Report · 07 Jan 2026

Ever since the controversial methodology changes of 2015, the credibility of India's national accounts has been significantly impaired. Sophisticated observers, including ourselves, largely decoupled from official GDP statistics, relying instead on a mosaic of high-frequency proxies to gauge the ...

Increasing FDI into financial firms

INDIA · Report · 29 Dec 2025

While aggregate Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) data suggests a period of moderation—characterized by net outflows in the latter part of the year and a distinct trend in the manufacturing sector—the financial services landscape has diverged from this broader narrative. We examine the increase...

A reform blitz? Separating the signal from the noise

INDIA · Report · 04 Dec 2025

In recent months, the union government has reformed the Goods and Services Tax (GST), operationalized the long-awaited Labor Codes, set the date for the implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, and rescinded several Quality Control Orders (QCOs). This flurry of activit...

Twenty days that will shake Indian trade policy

INDIA · Report · 24 Nov 2025

The US-India economic relationship is currently navigating its most precarious phase in decades. Following the imposition of a cumulative 50% tariff regime on Indian goods in mid-2025, the bilateral engagement has moved behind closed doors, where negotiators have reportedly constructed a framewor...