How large is India's economy?

There is a rising national aspiration for India to become a developed economy by 2047. Prime Minister Narendra Modi first spoke of it in his address to the nation on August 15, 2022. What does it mean to be developed? A paper published in the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monthly bulletin of July 2023 found that the concept of a 'developed economy' is not well defined. Nor is it universally used. The World Bank does not use this terminology. It does classify countries as low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income, based on their per capita income. As per its classification, a country with a per capita income of $13,205 or more in 2022-23 is classified as a 'high-income country'. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) classifies countries as advanced and emerging-market developing economies based on three criteria: per capita gross domestic product (GDP), export diversification and global financial integration. The IMF gives no per capita income threshold for the advanced country category. The authors of the paper published by the RBI found that Croatia had the lowest per capita income in 2022 among the advanced economies. Interestingly,

This article was originally published on February 01, 2024.