{"id":132227,"date":"2023-04-12T05:31:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T05:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=132227"},"modified":"2023-04-12T05:31:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T05:31:08","slug":"india-china-economic-race-who-has-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/india-china-economic-race-who-has-won\/","title":{"rendered":"India-China Economic Race: Who Has Won?"},"content":{"rendered":"
One could argue that India is not troubled in the same way as China is by a declining population and structural problems in real estate\/construction and finance. For two years in a row, the Indian economy has grown faster than China’s.<\/p>\n The 7 per cent projected for this fiscal year compares with an uncharacteristically low 3 per cent for China in calendar year 2022.<\/p>\n Similarly, last year’s 9.1 per cent for India trumped China’s 8.1 per cent.<\/p>\n This comes on top of the relative performance of the two most populous countries in the five years before there was any sign of Covid (the calendar years 2014-2018, and their corresponding fiscal years for India).<\/p>\n That is when India outpaced China for the first time — averaging 7.4 per cent growth, while China managed 7 per cent.<\/p>\n Thus began the narrative of India as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, dethroning China after some three decades when Beijing had cornered all the glory.<\/p>\n But as always with such numbers, the story line can change when you play around with the period chosen for study.<\/p>\n What’s missing in the picture presented in the previous paragraph are the two intervening years of 2019 and 2020, when China managed to do better than India; and to do so by such a wide margin as to flip the two countries’ positions when it comes to longer-term growth averages.<\/p>\n China grew by 6 per cent in 2019 compared to India’s 3.9 per cent for 2019-2020, and by 2.2 per cent in the first Covid year when India’s gross domestic product shrank by 5.8 per cent.<\/p>\n Taking the full nine years (2014-2022) together, therefore, China pipped India to the post with average growth of just over 6 per cent, compared to India’s 5.7 per cent.<\/p>\n Even if one looks at just the last four years, starting from the pre-Covid year, China outpaced India.<\/p>\n This somewhat uncertain result of the race, when one tries to gauge which really is the world’s fastest-growing large economy, should make one cautious about projections for the future.<\/p>\n Until very recently, most forecasters had it that India would do significantly better than China in 2023 (2023-2024).<\/p>\n The International Monetary Fund, for instance, postulated China’s growth at 4.4 per cent against 6.1 per cent for India.<\/p>\n But this scenario has undergone a change in recent weeks, as China has altered course dramatically and given up its zero-tolerance policy on Covid, with the attendant shutdowns and disruptions.<\/p>\n As a result, one forecaster after another has upped China’s growth figure for 2023.<\/p>\n Most have moved up their China forecast to the region of 5.5 per cent; the more optimistic ones place it slightly higher.<\/p>\n That is below the 6-6.8 per cent range held out for India in the Economic Survey of a month ago, with a mid-line forecast of 6.5 per cent.<\/p>\n The question is whether this latter picture changes for the worse after India’s October-December GDP growth number has come in at just 4.4 per cent. Might the two cheetahs end up in another dead heat?<\/p>\n The government has argued that the latest quarterly growth figure has suffered on account of small upward revisions of the previous three years’ growth numbers.<\/p>\n Perhaps, but the growth number for the current January-March quarter is projected at no more than 5.1 per cent.<\/p>\n And the chief economic advisor has been frank enough to admit that the downside risks now outweigh any possible upsides.<\/p>\n The modified outlook is underlined by the February collections from goods and services tax.<\/p>\n At Rs 1.49 trillion, they show little or no growth over recent months.<\/p>\n In other words, there is no sign — yet — of the momentum that would propel India from a 5 per cent growth trajectory to 6 per cent and more.<\/p>\n If so, the short-term outlook for the Indian economy is not very different from that for China.<\/p>\n One could argue that India is not troubled in the same way as China is by a declining population and structural problems in real estate\/construction and finance.<\/p>\n But India has serious trade and fiscal imbalances, and excessive dependence on capital expenditure by the government.<\/p>\n The message is clear: If there is a growth race between India and China, there is as yet no one winner.<\/p>\n
But India has serious trade and fiscal imbalances, and excessive dependence on capital expenditure by the government, points out T N Ninan.<\/strong><\/p>\n