Smaller cities drive India’s GCC growth: FM | Today’s news
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said India has reached an inflection point in its Global Capability Center (GCC) journey, moving from a scale- and cost-effectiveness-driven goal to a capability-led one, as she outlined the government’s ambition to build an ecosystem supporting around 5,000 GCCs by 2030.
Addressing the closing session of the CII GCC Business Summit 2026, the finance minister said India currently hosts more than 2,100 GCCs, employs 2.3 million professionals and generates nearly $100 billion in annual revenue, with more than 500 Forbes Global 2000 companies operating GCCs in the country.
GCC is an offshore, wholly owned facility established by a multinational company to independently handle core operations, technology development and strategic business services. The finance minister said India now hosts more than half of the world’s GCCs. She added that while one new GCC was established every week in 2024, the pace had accelerated to one new GCC every day on average.
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“The ambition to build an ecosystem capable of supporting around 5,000 GCC countries by 2030 is therefore realistic and achievable. And this is a milestone on a much bigger journey,” she said.
Sitharaman said India’s value proposition has evolved beyond cost arbitrage, with the GCC increasingly engaged in artificial intelligence (AI), engineering research and development (ERD), cyber security, digital platforms, product architecture, financial innovation and enterprise-wide transformation.
“India’s GCCs are taking on an increasing share of global leadership mandates and strategic decision-making responsibilities. In other words, India’s value proposition has evolved from cost efficiency to leadership capabilities,” she said.
She noted that more than half of newly established GCCs are AI-first, while ERD has emerged as one of the fastest-growing capability areas. Businesses are now focused on maximizing innovation and strengthening long-term competitiveness rather than just minimizing costs, she added.
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According to FM Sitharaman, India has become the preferred destination because of its talent, institutions and innovation ecosystem. She described the GCC country’s ecosystem as “perhaps the largest organized export of knowledge in the world” and argued that MNCs are increasingly relying on capabilities built in India to remain globally competitive.
The Minister also emphasized that the next phase of GCC growth will increasingly extend beyond established metropolitan centers to Tier II and III cities.
She said cities like Varanasi, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam, Tiruchirappalli and Mysuru are developing mature innovation ecosystems along with competitive operating costs, making them attractive destinations for future investment.
“When the GCC settles in one of these cities, it has a multiplier effect,” she said, adding that such investments create demand for advanced skills, support startups, strengthen research collaborations and contribute to balanced regional development.
To support the industry, Sitharaman highlighted several measures announced in the Union Budget 2026-27, including a single safe harbor regime for IT and IT-enabled services, raising the safe harbor threshold from ₹300 million crowns ₹2,000 crore, a fast-track Advance Pricing Agreement (APA) mechanism, continued investment in digital public infrastructure and multimodal logistics, five university towns and creation of Urban Economic Regions (CERs) to develop globally competitive innovation hubs.
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She said these initiatives aim to reduce compliance burdens, improve policy certainty and encourage long-term investment by global businesses.
Sitharaman said nearly two-thirds of Fortune Global 2000 companies have yet to set up GCCs in India, representing one of the country’s largest untapped investment opportunities. She added that India also sees significant scope for attracting companies from East and West Asia, Eastern Europe, the Nordics and Australasia.
Sitharaman urged the industry to move further up the value chain by creating intellectual property, leading frontier research, developing artificial intelligence applications and expanding into emerging cities.
She also called for stronger partnerships with universities, startups, state governments and city governments to deepen India’s innovation ecosystem and strengthen the country’s position in the global knowledge economy.
