India Risk Analysis
...Huang-Lisle titled their paper in the Bulletin de l'Association
(Nov 2001, No. 27), "La Chine: la plus ancienne civilisation
etc?". Given the unrelenting pace of growth exceeding10% p.a ever since, this question is largely rhetorical few would answer it in the negative. In fact, as if China was not enough in causing considerable commotion in the world of business and investment (challenging the long held belief that the world will always remain divided between the developed prosperous North and the developing poor South), the question could now well be applied to the lumbering Indian elephant that seems to be chasing the Chinese dragon at some speed, with both projected to overtake most of the G6 countries by the time the new generation born today grow up and enter the work force. The chart below from a Goldman Sachs study of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, based on certain assumptions having regard to the present trends, graphically illustrates how the "catch-up" game is projected to unfold in the first half of this century:
According to this study, "India has the potential to show the fastest growth over the next 30 and 50 years. Growth could be higher than 5% over the next 30 years and close to 5% as late as 2050 if development proceeds successfully".
No account of the Indian economy can be credible without soberly addressing the "if" in the above statement. The recent spurt in the growth rate following the economic reforms of 1991, after decades of the "Hindu rate of growth" (2.5/3%), seems like a small miracle when juxtaposed with the innumerable challenges posed by the heterogeneity of the social and cultural structure of the people in this sub-continent. and, as we shall see, the "joker" effect of a hyperactive and pluralistic form of democracy that has taken firm roots. Very often the latter is cited as a stumbling...
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