Mumbai – The World Bank a few days earlier had predicted that India would match China’s economic growth rate by 2016 or 2017. Now, also the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced a similar projection.
As per the IMF’s estimate, India’s GDP growth would actually outstrip that of China by next year. But none of this is happening because India’s economy is slated to expand expeditiously. In fact, the country’s estimated growth projection for 2015 has been actually lowered by the IMF, from 6.4% in last October to 6.3% currently. And despite all the talk of reform and revival in recent months, the growth forecast for 2016 has remained unchanged.
Its neighbour is seeing a near quarter-century low—from 7.7% in 2013 to 7.4% in 2014—in its economic expansion. Accordingly, the IMF cut the growth projection for China by as much as 0.3 percentage points in 2015 and 0.5 percentage points in 2016. China’s GDP projections now stand at 6.8% in 2015 and 6.3% in 2016. Although the Chinese government has chosen to describe the slowdown as the “new normal of stable growth”, the country’s once booming construction and real estate sector have slumped and industrial expansion has slowed down.
