A report coming out of Southeast Asia looks at the way in which India is set, within the decade, to become the largest economy in the Commonwealth and the third largest overall. This is being seen as a sign of success, of their doing something right. Which is true in a trivial manner: but the greater truth is that this is a sign of the failure of previous policies, Forbes economist's report said on Saturday.
A report from Malaysia says:
The latest edition of Cebr Global’s World Economic League Table (WELT) will see the “unstoppable” rise of India as it surpasses Britain to become the largest economy in the Commonwealth in 2018 and the third largest economy in the world by 2024, according to a new global league table reported by the Press Association.
In more detail, the predictions are:
Its 2014 ranking puts the US first, followed by China, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Brazil, Italy, India and Russia, in that order.
By 2030, it forecasts that globalization will have reached its mature phase, with China installed as the world’s biggest economy ahead of the US and India in third place, followed by Japan, Brazil, the UK, Germany, South Korea, France and Russia.
The rise of India looks unstoppable. India overtakes the UK in 2018 to become the largest economy in the Commonwealth and the rise continues – by 2024 India is the world’s third largest economy.
Nations Getting Richer
This is all good stuff, of course it is. It’s just wonderful that places that are currently poor are becoming richer. And yes, at least part of it all is that better public and economic policies are being followed in those formerly poor nations, the very things and policies that are making them richer.
If all countries were doing equally well in providing a lifestyle for their citizenry then one would expect the world’s largest economies to be those with the largest populations. And this isn’t quite so: it’s only just now that China, with four or five times the population, has passed the US as the largest economy. And India is still well behind, despite a similarly larger population. Meaning that the US is doing four or five times better than China in providing a living standard to its people than China is: and obviously yet again better than India.
Bounce Back
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan said late Friday that though the country is still not on a firm footing to return to high economic growth like in the past, he was confident that it would do so in a matter of a few years.
Terming the surge in gold imports recently due to relaxation of import norms, and the widening trade gap as one-offs, Rajan expressed confidence that things would return to normal soon with the fall in gold imports. "We are not in a phase of strong growth as yet," NDTV Profit reported Rajan as saying. "(There is) high possibility that India grows reasonably strong over the next two years."
The Indian economy this fiscal slipped to its worst growth in a decade, triggering a sense of gloom with investments not reviving even six months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking charge of the country in May. While data indicate that project clearances have become quicker, no new investments are coming through, given the high debt levels of companies.
With positive sentiment, the government eased gold import rules, but that led to a surge in imports of the yellow metal, leading to the current account deficit — the excess of spending overseas than its earnings — nearly doubling to 2.1% of the gross domestic product in the September quarter.
