New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday raised its FY26 growth forecast for India to 7.2%, up from the 6.5% projected in September. The upgrade also helped lift the bank's outlook for developing Asia and the Pacific in 2025 by 0.3 percentage points to 5.1%. Developing Asia includes the 46 developing members of the ADB. ADB attributed the revision for India to robust domestic consumption, while solid export performance in the region's high-income, technology-exporting economies contributed to the improved regional outlook. ADB kept its FY27 growth projection for India unchanged at 6.5%, and nudged up its estimate for the region by 0.1 percentage points to 4.6%. ADB's India forecasts follow the financial year ending March. "Asia and the Pacific's solid economic fundamentals are underpinning robust export performance and steady growth, despite a global trade environment clouded by historic levels of uncertainty over the past year," according to a statement quoting chief economist Albert Park. Trade agreements have eased some of that uncertainty, Park said, but external risks remain, and governments should continue to support open trade and investment. Resilient exports, particularly of semiconductors and other technology products, moderating inflation, and stable financial conditions have strengthened the region's growth outlook, the multilateral agency said. The improved forecast for India follows a stronger-than-expected 8.2% expansion in the September quarter. The upside surprise has prompted both chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to signal that full-year growth could exceed 7%, with the first half already clocking 8%. "The strong growth is attributable to robust expansion of the manufacturing and services sectors on the supply side and consumption and investment on the demand side. Exports remained resilient due to front-loading ahead of elevated US tariffs and diversification to non-US markets," said the Bank's Asian Development Outlook December 2025. The 70 basis point upward revision in India's GDP forecast for the current year is largely due to the robust growth of 8% that India achieved in the first half of 2025-26, said D.K. Srivastava, chief policy advisor, EY India. "This is in line with RBI's upward revision of FY26 real GDP growth to 7.3% in its December 2025 monetary policy review. Recent National Statistics Office data for September quarter of 2025-26 highlighted the sectorally balanced growth profile of India's GVA sectors where both manufacturing and the services sectors showed near equal growth at 9.1% and 9.2% respectively, leading to an overall GDP growth of 8.2% in this quarter. Even on the demand side, growth was supported in a balanced way by private consumption and overall investment with private final consumption expenditure and gross fixed capital formation growing at 7.9% and 7.3% respectively in the second quarter of 2025-26, Srivastava said....