India's expanding economic weight will influence global supply chain dynamics: KM Birla

Over the next decade, Indias expanding economic weight will influence how global supply chains are designed, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Friday. He further said, Over the next decade, Indias expanding economic weight will not merely shift supply chains at the margins.

Over the next decade, India's expanding economic weight will influence how global supply chains are designed, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Friday. By the end of this decade, global manufacturing will no longer revolve around a single centre of gravity. It will be shaped by two -- India and China, he said while addressing the ICAI World Forum of Accountants event. Stating that global value chains are in flux, he said tariff escalation alone reshuffled more than USD 400 billion of trade flows in 2025, citing World Economic Forum data. ''...companies are relearning an old lesson that efficiency without resilience is no longer efficient, and this is where India enters the frame,'' Birla said. He further said, ''Over the next decade, India's expanding economic weight will not merely shift supply chains at the margins. It will influence how supply chains are designed''. Stating that manufacturing investment now flows towards economies that can absorb shocks, manage risks and offer credible alternatives at scale, Birla said, ''India offers precisely this blend, an expansive domestic market, a deepening industrial base and a democratic resilience that India gives confidence for long-term capital''. By the mid 2030s, he said, India will account for close to a quarter of the world's incremental workforce at a time when labour pools shrink across most major manufacturing economies. ''This alignment between expanding productive capacity and long-term market depth in India is increasingly rare,'' he said, adding that what began as a 'China plus one hedge' is evolving into something much more durable and for a growing number of global firms. India is becoming the market that justifies the factory, Birla said, adding that the country now assembles nearly a fifth of the world's iPhones. India's advantage will come from the steady accumulation of industrial density, driven by localisation of components, chemicals and industrial services. Birla pointed out that for three decades, global manufacturing rested on a deceptive, simple organising principle -- scale in one geography and the world relied on it for efficiency. ''That model delivered extraordinary results, but it also had embedded in it a fragile assumption that the world would keep consuming, that China would keep producing, and that political stability will keep the political lanes open. That assumption no longer holds true,'' he asserted. He said India's fast-developing infrastructure will help cut logistics costs, while rapid urban development, coupled with the expected increase in per capita income level to USD 10,000, will mark ''a powerful psychological inflection point -- the moment when a country begins to see itself and is seen by others as a consequential force in the global order''. This will be an India that feels no need to announce its arrival, he said, adding that ''it will simply be present in supply chains, in brands, in products, in ideas and in conversations familiar, dependable and over time, increasingly difficult to imagine the world without''. ''The real question is not whether we rise, but how fast we rise?'' he said, while mooting to build an economy that is ''distinctly Indian, digital, inclusive, sustainable and rooted in our civilisational values''.

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