India Can Become An Upper-Middle-Income Nation By 2047: Bibek Debroy At ‘Competitiveness Roadmap For India@100'

The road map is a collaborative endeavour between the EAC-PM and The Institute for Competitiveness

The Competitiveness Roadmap for India@100 was released by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) on Tuesday. The road map, which is a part of the India Competitiveness Initiative, was released in the presence of Dr Bibek Debroy, chairman, EAC-PM, Sanjeev Sanyal, member, EAC-PM, and the members of the group formed as part of the initiative.

It is a collaborative endeavour between the EAC-PM and The Institute for Competitiveness and is developed by Dr Amit Kapoor, chair, Institute for Competitiveness, Professor Michael E Porter, and Dr Christian Ketels of Harvard Business School.

During his speech, Debroy said that India can become an upper-middle-income country by 2047 if it manages to achieve a sustained growth rate of 7-7.5 per cent for the next 25 years. The country can become a $20 trillion economy by 2047 at this growth rate, he added.

India, the world's sixth-largest economy with a GDP of $2.7 trillion, is currently classified as a developing nation. "Even if you have relatively conservative real rates of growth of 7-7.5 per cent, we will get to a per capita income of about $10,000.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target of making India a developed nation by 2047.

“And you will get to a total size of the economy of a little less than $20 trillion in 2047," the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) Chairman said while releasing 'The Competitiveness Roadmap for India@100'.

"Prime Minister charged us to think about next 25 years. No policy that is decided today will last for the next 25 years. But if we manage to affect their thinking about India's competitiveness and what it takes for this country to grow. Then actually I think we have the opportunity to have an impact for many years into the future," Dr Christian Ketels from Harvard Business School said.

"India is a huge economy...growing quite well, but the size of the prosperity is small...The PM has given us the task to improve the prosperity and productivity," he added.

According to the World Bank’s definition, a country with a per capita annual income of over $12,000 is considered as a higher-income nation.

The Competitiveness Roadmap for India@100 provides the basis for a renewed approach to India’s growth and development strategy. Moving ahead, the focus would be on developing KPIs and road maps for different industries, ministries, and states of the country to shape the journey towards reaching the country’s ambitions by its centennial year.