The ‘Digital India’ initiative aligns the country with the fourth industrial revolution, focusing on building robust digital capabilities and creating meaningful prospects for investments, said KPMG report India CEO Outlook 2016.

India’s digital infrastructure is emerging significantly. For instance, with more than one billion biometric signatures, the country boasts the world’s biggest biometric database. The spread of technology is palpable: Indian Railways sells about 70 percent of its tickets online, making it one of the largest e-commerce websites in the world. Such advancements have planted India firmly in the minds of CEOs worldwide. German CEOs see Western Europe, India and Brazil as the markets with the most potential for growth over the next three years; Spanish CEOs have rated India as the second best hotspot for growth (35 percent).

The world has recognized India’s potential and sees long-term value in becoming a part of India’s growth story, the report said.

India has taken several steps to showcase its progressive mind-set, such as the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ initiative, focused tax reforms, encouraging start-ups and entrepreneurship, in order to create a favourable business ecosystem. The ‘Make in India’ initiative is aimed at enabling India to emerge as a global manufacturing hub.

The report added that there is a concentrated push to develop infrastructure so that the country can attract increasing investments from abroad. Roads, railways, power, ports and all key elements of core infrastructure are being enhanced in a unified and structured manner. As per the survey, India ranks the highest in areas of infrastructure, insurance and manufacturing investments by global CEOs, giving the country (38 percent CEOs) a slight edge over China (34 percent CEOs).

While the global economy is still recovering from the lingering effects of economic slowdown in the last few years, it has had to cope with new challenges in the form of low oil prices and slowdown of the Chinese economy. These factors have combined to restrict the global economic growth and are further expected to influence the fortunes of most nations. In this scenario, there a few bright spots – none brighter than India – that act as beacons of hope for the world economy.

Currently, at over 7 percent, the Indian economy’s growth levels are unmatched by any major economy in the world. This surge in economic growth is expected to continue over the short to medium-term, making India the go-to destination for investments worldwide. A clear indication of this reflects in the foreign direct investment (FDI) it received in 2015, which outpaced that of China. Such sentiments are apparent from the global survey, according to which 44 percent of CEOs from the US believe that India has the greatest potential for market growth over the next three years. Thirtyfour percent of British CEOs and 37 percent of French CEOs see India as the country having the maximum potential for new markets growth.

Read: The India CEO Outlook 2016