New Delhi: Notwithstanding the Centre’s claim to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025, data compiled by the World Bank reveals that in 2018 the UK and France have deposed India from its position of being the fifth-largest economy.
Data released in 2017 showed that India had emerged as the sixth largest economy, relegating France to the seventh place. On the other hand, the latest data released by the World Bank showed that India had overtaken even the UK to become the fifth-largest economy in 2017. According to the World Bank data, the economic size of India was $2.65 trillion in 2017. India was followed by the UK with $2.64 trillion economy and France at $2.59 trillion.
However, this status was short lived as the UK’s economy grew to $2.82 trillion and the French economy expanded to $2.78 trillion in 2018, against India’s $2.73 trillion, showed the data. This suggests that contrary to the claims made by the government, the country’s economy grew a sluggish pace of mere 3.01 per cent in 2018 in terms of dollar terms compared to 15.72 per cent in 2017.
Conversely, the Brexit fears notwithstanding, the UK’s economy grew 6.81 per cent against a contraction of 0.75 per cent during the same period. Similarly, France’s economy grew by 7.33 per cent compared to 4.85 per cent in the previous year.
According to economists this is owing to the movement of the Indian rupee vis-à-vis the dollar. Substantiating their view, one economist said that while the Indian rupee appreciated as much as 3 per cent in 2017, it depreciated about 5 per cent in 2018. Consequently, this lead to a relatively slower growth of the Indian economy vis-à-vis the dollar in 2018 compared to the same period in 2018.
The Indian economy grew 11.2 per cent in 2018-19 in terms of rupee – slightly lower than its growth rate (11.3 per cent) in 2017-18. Incidentally, the World Bank has been released at a time when there is talk about India’s economy overtaking that of Japan by 2025 to emerge as a $5 trillion economy.
