Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal said that India would be the third largest economy in four years or so, at best five years. Addressing the Asia Economic Dialogue in Pune, he said “My own conviction about the way India is growing is that we will drive our economy probably closer to 35 – 40 trillion-dollar economy by 2047. The desire of every Indian is to be second to none.”
The Minister exhorted the industry to be proud of their achievements, of our strong macroeconomic fundamentals, about the reforms done in the past few years. “We believe India not only is the fastest growing large economy, we will continue to be so for many decades to come.”
The Minister observed that Asia has its own particular dynamics, where we have economies which are both democracies and those which are non-transparent and non-rule-based.
“In the last decade or so, India has been wanting to internationalize and engage with technology and modern way of working. Today, India is clearly recognized as the country of the decade, if not the country of the 21st century. We have already moved from the tenth largest to the fifth largest economy. We today have a young demographic dividend, which is being recognized as our biggest asset.”
The Minister said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has had a severe effect on the developed world more than the developing countries. For food security and energy security and consequential impact on inflation, interest rates and growth, it has had a devastating effect on both developed and developing countries, he added.
The Minister recalled that in 2019, when India was engaged in discussions on joining RCEP group of nations, having studied what was being offered to India as part of the RCEP Agreement, we realized we were in some way an outlier.
“To my mind, the then-government’s decision to offer to become a part of RCEP was ill-conceived, since we were entering into an FTA with a non-transparent economy with no rule of law or court of appeal or democracy. The agreement could have been the death-knell of all manufacturing in India.”
