Skip to main content

India fifth largest economy in the world? IMF's per capita data say something else

 Forbes India, an obvious subsidiary of Forbes, one of America's top business magazines, has clubbed India among pop 10 largest economies in the world in 2023, with India being the fifth largest. I was a little surprised when I read this. However, as a read through the news story, my apprehensions appeared to be correct.
First let me quote from the story itself. It says, "The United States of America, China, Japan, Germany, and India are the largest economies in the world in 2023, as per their GDP data. GDP serves as a key metric for assessing the magnitude of a nation's economy."
It even describes the methodology of its calculation: "The conventional approach for gauging a country's GDP involves the expenditure method, wherein the total is derived by aggregating expenditure on fresh consumer goods, new investments, government outlays, and the net value of exports."
It praises India in following words: "India's economy boasts diversity and swift growth, fuelled by key sectors such as information technology, services, agriculture, and manufacturing. The nation capitalises on its broad domestic market, a youthful and technologically adept labour force, and an expanding middle class." 
Lovely!
However, as I glanced through the story, astonishingly, I found that in per capita GDP India is nowhere near any of the top economies of the world. Deriving its data from IMF, Forbes finds that while India's GDP is 3,750 USD, the fifth largest, when it comes to per  capita GDP, it's a poor 2,600 USD, not only way below rich capitalist countries but it's competitors like China 13,720 USD and Brazil 9,670 USD.
So there's nothing to cheer about!

Comments

TRENDING

Did the Sabarmati riverfront make Ahmedabad more vulnerable?

  Currently living in Los Angeles, I find myself missing Ahmedabad . Not because I miss living through the city's recent devastating floods—which, experts say, resulted from a combination of extreme meteorological events and chronic urban infrastructure bottlenecks—but because I am unable to make an on-the-spot assessment of the disaster.

Paradox of Stanford's Hoover Institute: Freedom from Communism, but freedom for whom?

A few days ago, we went to San Francisco, ordinarily a six-hour drive from Los Angeles. However, it took us more than eight hours because a fire had broken out on one of the mountains along the highway, forcing us to take another route, part of which ran along the seashore.

India’s growth story meets a stark wealth divide: billionaires gain as top 1% owns 40% of wealth

India’s rapid economic expansion is accompanied by an increasingly concentrated distribution of wealth, raising fresh questions over how fheadline GDP figures reflect the economic reality of ordinary Indians. A two yearold social-media post by former bureaucrat Anil Swarup , founder chairman of Nexus of Good , has resurrected a debate over the gap between India’s aggregate economic size and the wealth held by its richest citizens. Swarup argues that looking only at GDP per capita can obscure the extent to which wealth is concentrated among a small section of the population.