Key factors contributing to India's growth include strong domestic consumption, a rapidly expanding services sector, and robust government reforms aimed at fostering investment and infrastructure development.
China and Indonesia took the second spot, both seeing a 5% growth. While China's growth slowed slightly by 0.2 percentage points, Indonesia maintained its momentum without any change.
Brazil followed in fourth place, with GDP growth accelerating to 3.4% from 3.2% the previous year. Turkey, the only non-BRICS nation in the top five, came in fifth, but its economy faced a sharp slowdown, growing by only 3.2% compared to 5.1% in the previous year.
The major economies experiencing contraction last year were Argentina and Germany. Argentina, undergoing painful reforms under President Javier Milei, saw its GDP shrink by 1.7%, following a 1.6% decline the year before. Meanwhile, Germany's economy continued to struggle due to sanctions against Russia and intense competition from China in key markets, with its GDP shrinking by another 0.2% after a 0.3% drop the previous year.
Saudi Arabia, however, managed to recover from the decline of 2023, returning to growth with a 1.3% increase. South Korea also showed significant improvement, with its GDP growth rising to 2% from 1.4% in the previous year. The United Kingdom saw a similar acceleration, with growth climbing to 0.9% from 0.4%.
Other countries either maintained their growth rates or experienced a slowdown. Italy (0.7%), France (1.1%), and Canada (1.5%) were in the first group, with steady growth. In the second group, Japan saw its growth plummet by a staggering 19 times, to just 0.1%, while Australia's growth halved to 1%. South Africa and the United States also experienced slight slowdowns, with growth falling by 0.1 percentage points each, to 0.6% and 2.8%, respectively.
