Thread: India's Economy Predictions for 2050

Citigroup Chief Economist predicts India would be finanical superpower in 40 years. Most of us domainers who believe in the .in/.co.in domains, knew this anyway.

US will slip to world's third biggest economy by 2050 | Mail Online

India likely to be world's largest economy by 2050: Citi - The Times of India

This was covered on CNBC here in the US today and am sure will get people to think real hard on the future investments.

I don't think we need to wait 40 years to see the impact, we are already seeing the uptick.

Good luck to all.

I am a firm believer in the future of India, but you have to take articles like this with a grain of salt.

Over the past 15 years, I've read articles written by well educated and credible people that claimed AOL would be the largest company in the world (circa 1998 ), the aggregate value of the US housing stock would continue to realize 15% annual gains well into the 2020's (circa 2004), etc, etc, etc...

There is absolutely no question that the worlds wealth is shifting in a big, big way, away from the west and into the east. Anyone who denies that has their head buried up their ass. There's also no doubt that the standard of living in these places will increase, which means that the standard of living in the west may decline due to capital issues. Still, I'd like to know his basis for claiming that China will overtake the US in the next 9 years, while India will then overtake China by 2050. Those seem like very arbitrary figures, in spite of being a big claim to make.

While India or China may achieve a larger net purchasing power, there's still the nagging issue of per capita income, which is the most critical factor for standard of living. Anyone from the west who's ever been to India realizes they have a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go before they're even approaching where the US was in the 1940's. China has its infrastructure issues well underway, but there's that nagging issue of communism. Fascinating stuff- I cast my own lot in with India- but there's just such a long way to go before these places begin to resemble the west in terms of standard of living and PCI that it makes it almost impossible to predict where it all ends up, nevertheless citing specific dates and time ranges for it all.

India has major. serious problems: pollution,population and poverty.

All countries have problems of their own.
China suffers from all those problems, with the addition of a communism to the mix. Based on what I've seen, the advantage they have over India is civil order, which itself is the backbone of all productivity.

I think India must first deal with the infrastructure issue, then civil order (Seriously- round up the cows, clean up the garbage). In my opinion, a large part of the poverty problem in India resides in a cultural acceptance for a certain standard of living that is well beneath contemporary standards. It's almost as if everyone in China wants to live better, while 1/2 of India is this way too, with the other 1/2 perfectly content to continue living in huts amidst livestock and mountains of rubbish.

Dman, I agree with most of your points, I born and brought up in a remote village in india and lived in US,Europe (now in UK) and has travel to many countries... what I can see clearly is the way transformation happening towards the life standards improvement is unbelievable. people are technology friendly and will adopt to the technologies with ease and also despite of what ever the differences they have internally like ( cast , religion, linguistic...etc) they are together when come to INDIANISM...

I firmly belive it has to tackle the core problems especially in improving the 350 + million below poverty people moving to the decent living standards and also improving the standards of another 450 + lower middle class+middle class people life standards... this is only possible clear vision and follow-up the countries political leaders... what really India need is brave , visionay and honest leadership through out the country.... from the articles its also evident they mentioned clearly 3.5 trillion to 85 trillion, when the economy size grows obviously the people in the country will be richer day by day... this is where the government has to act cautiously to removing the economic differences between different sects of the people... if this is not happened and only the richer is getting richer... its not good for the country , I am sure India's leaders acts smart and will tackle this issue over a time ... 2050 is 40 long years to go , I firmly belive another 10 to 15 years India will transform and show the world what is the capacity it has as country...

Originally Posted by domainpundit

this is where the government has to act cautiously to removing the economic differences between different sects of the people... if this is not happened and only the richer is getting richer... its not good for the country

Agree 100%. This is one of the hardest issues to deal with. Our own country confronted this same issue at the turn of the 20th century when we were an emerging economy and we find ourselves confronting it again here in the 21st Century now that we're a developed economy.

Whenever any economy emerges, there will always be a small handful of people who, for an array of reasons, achieve an extreme disproportion of the available wealth. This comes at a time when the majority of the population still lives in poverty.

The hard part is keeping the economy oriented towards a free market path without the populace revolting and thrusting everything into a communist or intensely socialist system, which in turn stifles all growth and productivity and decreases standard of living. There's no doubt that economic liberalization is the sole engine that motivated all the amazing growth we've seen in India over the past 20 years. The reason I invest in India rather than China is because of the free market sentiments India supports. Still, we agree that the government must be very deliberate and careful when it comes to enriching the standard of living for everyone- a task they must achieve- without simply taking everything away from the most productive and innovative people to provide for 'everyone'.

I heard a perfect economic comparison between present day India and China.

In China, imagine traveling along a perfectly paved six lane highway in a brand new car traveling at 80 mph. This represents their strong infrastructure. However, up ahead lies a very large bump- which represents social reform; addressing communism and human rights. No one knows what will happen when the car traveling along this perfectly paved highway hits that bump. Perhaps it simply goes over it without any trouble, perhaps the wheels fly off and the while thing crashes but eventually, it must go over that bump.

In India, imagine traveling in a well worn car on a two lane dirt road. Up ahead lies a brand new car and perfectly paved, six lane highway without ANY bumps. The challenge is arriving there without veering off course, onto another dirt road.

It's so cool
I'm a Chinese,but i don't care.

1) Corruption at almost all levels in Govt. Offices

2) Hard to get a LOAN from the banks for Start-Ups and Individual/Professionals with Low Education. Process may take months with an sweet answer in the end "Your Application is Rejected, you may re-apply after 6 months. etc."

3) Dirty/Divisive Politics by almost all political parties, they always give priority to REGIONS, RELIGIONS, Separate States, etc. They HARDLY Speak of DEVELOPMENT, if they do so, opposition party shows scams in ruling party development schemes.

4) Yearly, Billion of Dollars Budget's passed in Parliament, yet it does not effect majority of Indians, specially 300+ Million people who still live below poverty line.


5) Poor Infrastructure, Big Promises which takes Decades to realize. Very POOR Transport System.

6) A single FLYOVER on any main road, takes 2-3 years to build. Lucky to hear there are no portion collapse while placing/building it.

7) POOR Education Infrastructure, IMO: education must be free for all those who can't afford it.

POOR Housing Schemes

9) Very SLOW Development at all levels.

10) Richer's are getting RICHER by every single day.

11) Poor People are still there, where they have been since independence. (I mean Villages/RURAL Areas which still do not have Basic Amenities, such as Sanitation, Electricity).


No Matter What,
ABOVE ALL, I love my country......very much....And I do believe it has all potential to be economic super power. We have a very good growth rate 9% yearly.

There seems to be a lot of challenges ahead, but the potential is enormous is the divide does not become even wider than it is today...

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

1) Corruption at almost all levels in Govt. Offices

This is not something exclusive to India. The corruption level is usually opposite to a country economic power and level of life. Where is corruption not existing or almost not existing? Like Scandinavian countries, for example. And where corruption is totally overwhelming all areas of life? - that's Africa (with some exceptions). I'm sure the corruption level in India will be slowly decreased year by year as the country goes up in economic rankings.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

2) Hard to get a LOAN from the banks for Start-Ups and Individual/Professionals with Low Education. Process may take months with an sweet answer in the end "Your Application is Rejected, you may re-apply after 6 months. etc."

Actually this may be a good thing from economic point of view. If you look at American financal system, they are about to collapse and one of the main reasons is total indebtedness at all levels with the government printing dollars to cover urgent expenses. India is much healthier here.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

3) Dirty/Divisive Politics by almost all political parties, they always give priority to REGIONS, RELIGIONS, Separate States, etc. They HARDLY Speak of DEVELOPMENT, if they do so, opposition party shows scams in ruling party development schemes.

This is very general point so I skip commeting it unless you are more specific.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

4) Yearly, Billion of Dollars Budget's passed in Parliament, yet it does not effect majority of Indians, specially 300+ Million people who still live below poverty line.

10) Richer's are getting RICHER by every single day.

This is how capitalism works - everywhere. If a country becomes rich they can afford big social programs but until then it is ruthless capitalism. I know many rich Indians spend their money helping poor, running education institutions and other social programs. They are great example to follow not only in India.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

5) Poor Infrastructure, Big Promises which takes Decades to realize. Very POOR Transport System.

6) A single FLYOVER on any main road, takes 2-3 years to build. Lucky to hear there are no portion collapse while placing/building it.

This is something I cannot argue with, but this is also changing in recent years as far as I know. Some new highways like Bangalore - Pune to be opened soon (or already opened?)

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

7) POOR Education Infrastructure, IMO: education must be free for all those who can't afford it.

I agree that education should be free for everybody.
But there is number of quality educational institutions throughout the country, though. Notice that many graduates coming from India to USA or Europe and getting high IT jobs, for example. It wouldn't be possible without quality universities.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

9) Very SLOW Development at all levels.

I don't think that's true.Small sprouts of may be not visible in grass but they become big trees in the future.

Originally Posted by ebiz4india

No Matter What,
ABOVE ALL, I love my country......very much....

And that's the way to go!