The Week In Charts: GDP Projections, Core Industry Slowdown, India-UAE Energy Partnership

(MENAFN- Live Mint)

From the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raising India's FY26 GDP growth projection to 7.3%, to weak core-sector output compared with pre-covid levels, India's new deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), rising US–EU tensions over Greenland, and the push for small-ticket UPI loans amid rising household debt, here's this week's news in numbers.

Higher GDP growth forecasts

The IMF has lifted its projection for India's GDP growth in FY26 to 7.3% from its October estimate of 6.6%. It attributed the upward revision to better-than-expected performance in the September quarter and strong momentum in the ongoing quarter.

Also Read | Why India's latest GDP number may matter less than us

The Reserve Bank of India and the World Bank had similarly revised their forecasts in their most recent iterations. However, the IMF, World Bank and other major institutions expect GDP growth to slow down next year. The IMF projects growth of 6.4% in both FY27 and FY28, while the World Bank expects it to slow to 6.5% in FY27, partly due to US tariffs on Indian imports and the waning of cyclical factors.

Core sectors subdued

India's eight core industries have been growing at a subdued pace this fiscal year. In the first nine months of FY26, output grew by 2.6%. In the past decade, only FY16, FY20 and FY21 saw slower growth. The data for December was released earlier this week.

The slowdown in FY26 is broad-based: all sectors except cement and steel were weak. Natural gas saw the sharpest contraction (3.2%), while crude oil and coal shrank 1.8% and 0.7%, respectively. Refinery products, fertilizers and electricity are the other constituents of the index.

That said, December was slightly better. Output rose 3.7% year-on-year, marking the second straight month of expansion.

India-UAE energy friendship

India signed a $3-billion deal on Monday to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under the agreement, state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co will supply LNG worth that amount to Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd over a 10-year period starting 2028.

The UAE's share in India's LNG imports has risen sharply over the years, from 1.5% in FY18 to 12.8% this year. This deal will make India the UAE's largest LNG buyer, accounting for around 20% of its sales by 2029. The west Asian nation is currently India's third-largest external source of LNG.

Also Read | Role shuffle: Should India's power ministry take charge of nuclear ener

Numbers in the news

₹75,000 crore: The cost of national highway projects that the government plans to bid out under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) toll model involving private road developers after a long break since 2014, Mint reported.

5.63: China's birth rate per 1,000 people in 2025, according to population statistics released on Monday. This is the lowest since 1949, as the world's second-most populous country grapples with a shrinking population.

8.3%: The decline in third-quarter profit of the country's sixth largest IT firm LTIMindtree, mainly on account of charges of about ₹590 crore linked to new labour regulations, Reuters reported.

$25 billion: The investment AM Green Group plans to make to set up a one-gigawatt data centre in Uttar Pradesh, following a deal signed with InvestUP, the state government's investment-focused arm, at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

3,000: Estimated fatalities in Iran's recent crackdown on nationwide protests-the first official tally released by the government, though lower than figures given by human rights groups.

Trump's arctic tussle

US President Donald Trump this week threatened eight European allies with a 10% tariff when they tried to resist his idea of taking over Greenland. For now, he has backed off from the threat after meetings at the World Economic Forum at Davos-but not before making stock markets nervous the world over. The Sensex fell nearly 2.5% over the past week.

Also Read | How Trump's Greenland gambit put Nato on the br

Europe is in a difficult position. The two sides of the Atlantic have long been friends, but the US is now more dominant than ever in the global economy, giving it the upper hand: in terms of sheer size, it has zipped past the EU unstoppably since 2010. The US is also a key export market for the newly targeted countries, giving it another advantage.

Micro loans on UPI

India's retail payments body is in talks with lenders to roll out credit lines as low as ₹5,000 on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), banking on credit-card-like interest-free periods and regulatory clarity to boost uptake, Mint reported.

This comes at a time when Indians are becoming increasingly indebted. The number of live unique borrowers-individuals with at least one active loan-has more than doubled over the past seven years to over 280 million, RBI data shows.

Household financial liabilities have increased as a share of GDP from 3% in FY15 to nearly 5% in FY25. Small-ticket, instant credit embedded in UPI could lower the psychological barrier to borrowing even further, potentially normalizing debt for everyday consumption rather than asset creation.

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