ISSUE
Friday, August 15, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 72
The slumbering elephant is not only lumbering along – it’s breaking into a canter. India has hitherto been compared to the slumbering elephant with its proverbial snail paced ‘Hindu rate of growth’. China, on the other hand has been likened to a fiery, raging dragon with an insatiable appetite for growth.
And pundits have all along predicted that some day in the medium to long term, the elephant will overtake the giant in terms of the rate of growth the economy. That longish time frame has now been revised to as early as 2012, according to the World Bank.
Though this year China would continue to grow at a faster pace than India, the global financial organisation’s World Economic Outlook predicts that India will grow at 8.7% in 2012, compared to China’s 8.4%, edging past the dragon’s marginally slowing growth rate.
China’s growth rate is expected to lose steam as its government begins to roll back fiscal stimuli introduced after the global financial crisis unfolded. That is also likely to increase inflation, putting the breaks on rates of growth, as interest rates rise.
Strong internal demand, improving economic conditions among its trading partners and a good monsoon this year are expected to help India to step up its act, though it, too, suffers from high inflation – particular so in recent months. But stronger rural demand and private capital inflows are picked to counter the negative forces.
However, China’s economy remains about five times larger than India’s – and that is saying a lot. The key to India’s faster growth rate beginning next year is whether it is able to sustain it.
"It may be the case for one or two years but what matters is whether India can sustain high growth," D K Joshi, chief economist at rating agency Crisil, was quoted as saying in the Times of India.
The other factor that is likely to be advantageous for India is the slow but steady erosion of the cost advantage of cheap labour in China, as wages rise, the report points out, acknowledging that these two Asian powerhouses are fuelling world growth.
According to its estimates, the global GDP expanded by 3.9% in 2010 but will dip to 3.3% in 2011 and touch 3.6% in 2012.
The slumbering elephant is not only lumbering along – it’s breaking into a canter. India has hitherto been compared to the slumbering elephant with its proverbial snail paced ‘Hindu rate of growth’. China, on the other hand has been likened to a fiery, raging dragon with an insatiable appetite for...
The slumbering elephant is not only lumbering along – it’s breaking into a canter. India has hitherto been compared to the slumbering elephant with its proverbial snail paced ‘Hindu rate of growth’. China, on the other hand has been likened to a fiery, raging dragon with an insatiable appetite for growth.
And pundits have all along predicted that some day in the medium to long term, the elephant will overtake the giant in terms of the rate of growth the economy. That longish time frame has now been revised to as early as 2012, according to the World Bank.
Though this year China would continue to grow at a faster pace than India, the global financial organisation’s World Economic Outlook predicts that India will grow at 8.7% in 2012, compared to China’s 8.4%, edging past the dragon’s marginally slowing growth rate.
China’s growth rate is expected to lose steam as its government begins to roll back fiscal stimuli introduced after the global financial crisis unfolded. That is also likely to increase inflation, putting the breaks on rates of growth, as interest rates rise.
Strong internal demand, improving economic conditions among its trading partners and a good monsoon this year are expected to help India to step up its act, though it, too, suffers from high inflation – particular so in recent months. But stronger rural demand and private capital inflows are picked to counter the negative forces.
However, China’s economy remains about five times larger than India’s – and that is saying a lot. The key to India’s faster growth rate beginning next year is whether it is able to sustain it.
"It may be the case for one or two years but what matters is whether India can sustain high growth," D K Joshi, chief economist at rating agency Crisil, was quoted as saying in the Times of India.
The other factor that is likely to be advantageous for India is the slow but steady erosion of the cost advantage of cheap labour in China, as wages rise, the report points out, acknowledging that these two Asian powerhouses are fuelling world growth.
According to its estimates, the global GDP expanded by 3.9% in 2010 but will dip to 3.3% in 2011 and touch 3.6% in 2012.
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