Taps Coogan – February 4th, 2024

As the following chart from Statista highlights, India is now the fastest growing large economy, a crown it is likely to hold on to for years to come:

While one shouldn’t put too much weight on GDP forecasts, the point remains that India has become the world’s sixth largest economy and is growing multiple times faster than the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. That leaves China, and Chinese GDP is likely closer to zero than whatever number they claim it is. In addition to ’rounding up’ to whatever number China wants their GDP to be (national GDP has often not even equal to the sum of regional GDPs), they game the calculation through state-directed real-estate development and WTO-violating state subsidies for loss-making export industries. Furthermore, while the Chinese population and workforce have begun to shrink, India is expected to experience at least another couple decades of growth. On top of that, India is not ruled by a communist dictator-for-life and has the basic, if imperfect, democratic institutions and rule of law needed to keep its growth trajectory running beyond the levels where we see China faltering today.