India: An economic powerhouse by 2020

PTI Jun 25, 2006, 12.00am IST

BANGALORE: By the year 2020, India will contribute 12.2 per cent to the global economic growth,
according to a study "Foresight 2020" conducted by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by
Cisco Systems, a global leader in networking for the internet.
The study projects the continued rapid growth of India as one of the fastest growing economies. By 2020,
India as a trading nation will record the biggest jump in world ranking -- from 24th to 10th, Cisco said in
a statement, giving details of the study.
India, China and the US will jointly contribute USD one trillion dollars to the global economy by then.
The next 15 years will see significant Asia, particularly powerhouses India and China, outpacing the rest
of the world in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), wages and consuming power.
Propelled by fast growth in India and China, Asia will increase its slice of the world's GDP from 35 per
cent in 2005 to 43 per cent by 2020. India's share in the global GDP will rise from 6.2 per cent in 2005 to
8.8 per cent in 2020.
Developing Asia will account for two-thirds of the increase in employment growth, with India alone
making up 30 per cent of the net increase in global employment with 142 million new jobs, it said.
According to the study, the world's consumer spending will expand at an annual rate of 5.6 per cent to
USD 62 trillion by 2020, compared to USD 27 trillion today.
Though the US will continue to be the largest consumer market, China will emerge as the world's second
largest one. India will rival the bigger European markets. India's share in world consumer spending will
increase from 1.9 per cent in 2005 to 3.1 per cent in 2020, the study said.
India's growing integration with the global economy and its favourable demographics are likely to ensure
a sustained rate of growth of 5.9 per cent a year in 2006-20. India's democracy is well entrenched, its
legal system is generally impartial, if slow-moving, and its constitution is respected.
However, India's much-discussed IT sector accounts for too small a share of GDP to be a long-term driver
of growth. Much more will depend on the modernisation of the country's agriculture and manufacturing, it
added.
India an economic powerhouse, better than China
PTI ^ | MONDAY, JANUARY 05, 2004 12:26:31 PM | PTI
Posted on 1/5/2004 2:37:13 PM by VinayFromBangalore

Management guru Peter Drucker has said India is becoming an economic powerhouse very fast and its
progress is far more impressive than that of China.

In an interview to the Fortune magazine, he said, "India is becoming a powerhouse very fast. The medical
school in New Delhi is now perhaps the best in the world. And the technical graduates of the Institute of
Technology in Bangalore are as good as any in the world." Also, India has 150 million people for whom
English is their main language. So India is indeed becoming a knowledge centre, the 94-year-old
management thinker said.

In contrast, he said, the greatest weakness of China is its incredibly small proportion of educated people.
China has only 1.5 million college students, out of a total population of over 1.3 billion. If they had the
American proportion, they would have 12 million or more in college. In China, there is enormous
undeveloped hinterland with excess rural population, but the likelihood of the absorption of rural workers
into the cities without upheaval seems very dubious, he said.

"You don't have that problem in India because they have already done an amazing job of absorbing
excess rural population into the cities. India's rural population has gone from 90 per cent to 54 per cent
without any upheaval," he said.

Everybody says China has 8 per cent growth and India only 3 per cent, but that is a total misconception.
"I think India's progress is far more impressive than China's," he said.