India Set to Become 3rd Largest Economy in 5 Years, to Touch $40 Trillion By 2047, Says Piyush Goyal

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said India would be the third-largest economy in the next five years and will be able to touch the $35-40-trillion mark by 2047. He also said India is not only the fastest-growing large economy, it will continue to be so for many decades to come.

“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,” Goyal said while speaking at the Asia Economic Dialogue 2023 event in Pune on Saturday, February 25.

The minister exhorted the industry to be proud of its achievements, of its 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.”

Goyal said 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 added 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.

Goyal 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 realised 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.”

The commerce minister said that over the years, we have hurt India’s interests by making our people getting used to low-cost substandard goods from China. “The trade deficit with China which was under 2 billion dollars around 15-16 years ago, increased to around 48 billion dollars by 2014. We allowed products to come from China while they stopped our products from India to go to China through legitimate or illegitimate reasons. Hence, it was music to my ear when Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to not join RCEP on 4th November, 2019, which was celebrated across the country by every section of industry and business, every farmer and every person associated with dairy sector.”

Speaking of free-trade agreements, the minister told industry representatives that we did the fastest ever FTA in the history of the world, the India UAE Agreement having been completed in 88 days. “We also completed a fast FTA with Australia. That is the enthusiasm the world is demonstrating towards working with India. We have negotiations going on with Israel, Canada, EU, UK and GCC. Russia and its partner countries of EAU too want to fast-track negotiations with India.”