Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said India has transformed into a preferred destination for innovation and enterprise, urging young entrepreneurs to seize emerging opportunities and build globally competitive businesses from the country.
Addressing the Special Plenary Session of the YiFi Entrepreneurship Summit 2026 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, FM Sitharaman said India today offers a stable policy environment, regulatory certainty and world-class infrastructure that make it an attractive destination for startups and businesses.
"India is the place to innovate and do business, backed by a stable government, policy certainty, a predictable tax regime and a responsive, approachable government," the Finance Minister said. The minister said the Narendra Modi government's reforms have fundamentally redefined the role of the government from being a controller of enterprise to becoming an enabler of enterprise.
“Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, the role of the Government has been redefined from being a controller of enterprise to becoming an enabler of enterprise,” FM Sitharaman mentioned. “Through formalisation, digitisation, regulatory reforms, GST and investments in infrastructure and connectivity, we have created an ecosystem where businesses can start, grow and compete with confidence,” the finance minister added.
FM Sitharaman urged businesses to make full use of the opportunities emerging across sunrise sectors by embracing technology and innovation. The Finance Minister also said India has moved beyond the mindset of self-doubt and is now contributing to some of the world's most advanced scientific and technological programmes.
“Businesses must come forward to utilise the opportunities emerging across sunrise sectors, leverage technology and innovation,” the minister noted. Calling upon the next generation of entrepreneurs to think ambitiously, FM Sitharaman said they should "build boldly, build responsibly, build for India, build for the world and above all, build for generations yet to come."
The Union Minister observed that the most significant boundaries in today's world are no longer geographical, as technology has made global markets accessible from almost anywhere while capital increasingly flows across borders in search of promising ideas.