Sitharaman told a Chicago audience that the deficit to 31 March 2026 was 15.19 trillion rupees, 97.5 per cent of revised estimates and 4.4 per cent of GDP. She said they aim by 2030 to cut the debt-to-income ratio to 50 per cent without cutting welfare or capital spending, and named Hormuz among the shocks. Kamco Invest said Gulf inflation stayed muted in July despite US-Iran oil swings, with Dubai at 5.3 per cent and Saudi Arabia at 1.8 per cent.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Indian diaspora in Chicago that the government has stayed on its consolidation path. For the year to 31 March 2026 the deficit came in at 15.19 trillion rupees, or 97.5 per cent of the revised estimates presented in February, and equal to 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product. Sitharaman said the government aims to bring the debt-to-income ratio down by 2030 to 50 per cent.[1]
Sitharaman said this was achieved without cutting social welfare programmes or public capital spending on infrastructure, and that growth has held at 7 per cent or more since the pandemic despite the war in Ukraine, tariff disputes and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. She said a tenfold rise in international urea prices was absorbed by subsidy, and that the budget covered higher risk premiums when insurers stopped covering ships on volatile routes. She said the age of multilateral treaties has passed, so bilateral trade and investment treaties continue with the European Union, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and EFTA states. Sitharaman began the US leg of a nine-day trip to Canada and the United States, running from 25 August to 2 September, on 28 August, and said she will attend the G20 finance meetings in Asheville.[1]
Kamco Invest said consumer inflation across the Gulf Cooperation Council stayed muted in June and July despite oil and gas price swings tied to the US-Iran conflict. Saudi Arabia's annual rate was 1.8 per cent in July, below the central bank's 2 per cent benchmark; Dubai's was 5.3 per cent, fell from a peak of 5.7 per cent in June. Kamco Invest's July reading put annual inflation at 3.4 per cent in the United States and 2.9 per cent in the eurozone, and named the conflict and higher energy costs as key drivers of European inflation. Sitharaman had told the Chicago audience that a tenfold rise in international urea prices was absorbed by subsidy and that the budget covered higher risk premiums on volatile routes, including disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.[2], [1]
