G20 podium
THE G20 presidency has given India a chance to showcase its economic progress and cultural heritage to the world and the credit for this glorification of India goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India has also changed the nature of G20 meetings. Earlier they were considered to be closed-door meetings, but now PM Modi’s vision has changed this and for the first time, public participation was ensured. Along with this, India’s economy is also performing better than others in the world.
Reports from global economic organisations suggest that India is in a stronger position amid a shaky global economy. According to the National Statistics Office report, India’s growth rate in April to June 2023 was 7.8 per cent, the highest in the world.
PM Modi had reiterated this at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders’ Dialogue in Johannesburg, when he had said that India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world amid challenges and turmoil in the global economy.
He had also said that the reforms being undertaken by his Government in mission mode had increased the ease-of-doing business. India has the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, and there are more than 100 unicorns in the country.
Also, India will soon emerge as a five trillion-dollar economy and become an engine of development for the world.
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence report, the faltering global economy is under dark clouds. A growth rate of about 2.5 per cent in 2023 is expected to decrease to 2.4 per cent in 2024. There is weakness in global housing, bank credit, and industrial sector due to monetary policy tightening. There are also worrying messages from economies such as China, the US, and Japan.
US President Joe Biden has termed China’s economy a time bomb that can explode any time. America is also going through an extraordinary debt crisis. In the last three years, its debt has increased by about 8 trillion dollars. As a result, rating agency Fitch has downgraded the US credit rating from AA+ to AAA. Things are not good in Japan either.
Amid all this, India’s economy will be the fastest-growing in 2023. India’s growth rate has been estimated to be 5.9 per cent in 2023 and 6.1 per cent in 2024.
The world’s fifth-largest economy, India is likely to emerge as the world’s third-largest economy by 2027, leaving behind Japan and Germany. India’s economy grew at the fastest pace in a year in the April-June quarter, led by services and manufacturing.
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.7 per cent last quarter, up from 6.1 per cent in the previous quarter and its fastest expansion since April–June 2022, according to the average forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
Assocham Secretary General Deepak Sood says that India has become a major force in driving the global economy. A real growth rate of 7.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2023–24 will make India the envy of major economies around the world. In such a situation, the presidency of G20 makes India more special. It has given a new flavour to the nature of the G20 grouping and it comes with extraordinary expectations and responsibilities.
