The immediate answer appears straightforward. The conflict in West Asia. India imports more than 85 per cent of its oil requirements, making it highly exposed. Oil alone accounted for more than USD 120 billion of imports last year.
Cracks before the crisis
Signs of stress were visible well before the recent conflict. Between 2022 and early 2026, the rupee was among the weakest-performing currencies across comparable emerging economies despite substantial intervention by the Reserve Bank of India. Foreign investment flow weakened and investors became cautious. These are difficult trends to reconcile for an economy supposedly expanding at breakneck speed. The recent conflict may simply be exposing weaknesses that already existed.
Governments try to soften the impact by preventing prices from rising. This merely shifts the burden elsewhere, to subsidies, lower revenues, or pressure on public finances. The immediate response, should not be to absorb the shock indefinitely, but to manage it. Energy prices may need to be increased gradually until domestic prices move closer to global costs. Rather than subsidising prices for everyone, governments can support poorer households directly while allowing prices to send the right signals to the rest of the economy.
Unfinished Story of Manufacturing Growth
The deeper issue appears to be growing doubts about India’s medium-term growth story. Labour-intensive manufacturing has remained weak. Despite starting from low levels, India’s share in global labour-intensive exports has shown little sustained improvement over the past decade and a half. Electronics manufacturing has shown promise, but investors may still be pondering if these are isolated successes or signs of broader transformation. Services have done better, but artificial intelligence is creating uncertainty. Some of the firms that powered India’s earlier IT boom have already started reducing labour intensity. Even if high-end services continue to perform well, they may not create sufficiently broad-based employment.
Private invesments are low
These concerns ultimately show up in one place: investment. Investors reveal confidence not through speeches but through actions. During India’s investment cycle in the mid-2000s, private corporate investment reached close to 17 per cent of GDP. Today it stands at roughly half that level. There was a brief recovery after covid, but it faded quickly. To be fair, the government has taken several steps to address this: labour reforms, openness to foreign investment and major trade agreements. But investors care more about risk than cost. Managing the immediate pressures from oil is important. But restoring confidence in India’s longer-term growth story may matter even more.
The author is Founder and Managing Director, Insignia Policy Research
