India pips France to emerge world’s sixth biggest economy
11 Jul 2018
India has become the world’s sixth-biggest economy, pushing France into seventh place, according to updated World Bank figures for 2017. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to $2.597 trillion at the end of last year, against $2.582 trillion for France.
But, with a population of around 1.34 billion inhabitants, India is also poised to become the world's most populous nation, which in turn would bring down its per capita income to a mere $19,380.
Against this, France with a GDP of $2.582 trillion has a population of 67 million and a per capita income of $38,537, which makes India a poor comparison to the advanced economies.
India’s economy rebounded strongly from July 2017, after several quarters of slowdown blamed on economic policies pursued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Manufacturing and consumer spending were the main drivers of the Indian economy last year, after a slowdown blamed on the de-monetisation of large banknotes that Modi imposed at the end of 2016, as well as a chaotic implementation of a new harmonised VAT regime.
India has doubled its GDP within a decade and is expected to power ahead as a key economic engine in Asia, even as China slows down.
According to the International Monetary Fund, India’s economy is projected to grow at 7.4 per cent this year and 7.8 per cent in 2019, against the average global growth rate of 3.9 per cent
The London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research, a consultancy, said at the end of last year that India would overtake both Britain and France this year in terms of GDP, and had a good chance to become the world’s third-biggest economy by 2032.
At the end of 2017, Britain was still the world’s fifth-biggest economy with a GDP of $2.622 trillion.
The US is the world’s top economy, followed by China, Japan and Germany.