India to surpass Britain to become 5th largest economy in 2019: Jaitley

New Delhi: Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday exuded confidence that India will pip Great Britain to become the fifth largest economy in the world next year if economic expansion continues at the projected rate.

However, rising international crude oil prices and the global trade war would throw up challenges going forward, he said. “If we keep growing at the rate which is being projected, it is likely that next year we will be the fifth largest economy ahead of Great Britain,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post titled ‘The Congress Gave Slogans to Rural India – Prime Minister Modi Gave Resources’.

“This is in consonance with the rest of the narrative. Being the fastest growing economy for the last four years, we can look at the next decade as one of economic expansion,” he added. A latest World Bank report has said that the Indian economy has become world’s sixth-biggest economy, pushing France to seventh place. The US tops the list followed by China, Japan, Germany and Britain.

The new calculations were arrived on the basis of Indian economy’s performance in 2017. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was valued at 177.87₹ trillion at the end of 2017 overtaking the French economy, which was amounted at 176.84₹ trillion last year.

“We have already seen a significant move up in India’s ranking in the ease of doing business and as a preferred investment destination. Today we stand to be tested in the midst of a global challenge thrown up on account of the international crude oil prices and the trade war,” Jaitley said.

Crude oil prices, which were around 4520.34₹ a barrel, in April are now hovering around 5136.75₹ a barrel. The Indian economy is estimated to grow at 7-7.5 per cent in the current fiscal, higher than 6.7 per cent growth clocked in 2017-18 fiscal.

“The recently released World Bank data reveals that India has now become the sixth largest economy relegating France to the seventh position. Obviously, on account of disparity in the size of the population, there would be a very significant difference in the per capita of the two countries,” he said.

The NDA government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has ensured that rural India and the less privileged get the first right on resources and if this, along with increased expenditure, continues for the next decade the impact on India’s rural poor would be significant, he said.

“This benefits all irrespective of religion, caste or community. The Congress provided India’s poor with slogan. Prime Minister Modi has given them resources. This will ensure faster growth and lead to a faster depletion in the poverty,” Jaitley added.

He said the Congress party in 1970s and 1980s followed the model of “populist slogans” rather than “sound policy and actual expenditure for the welfare of the poor”. “The 1971 Garibi Hatao’ model was one of redistribution of poverty rather than the generation of wealth and resources. The result of this misguided approach was that the lives of the poor did not move up significantly.

“On the contrary, the present Prime Minister is a man of many words and many more actions. He announces stiff targets and programmes which at first sight appear to be difficult, if not impossible. He follows it up with the actual implementation and delivers the promise,” Jaitley said. He said the government’s programmes for rural India will lead to increased incomes, increased social security, improved quality of life, higher income from agriculture and better healthcare.

Jaitley said ever since the present government took over, it has been working to translate the advantages of faster growth to rural India as well as to bring a significant section of people into the neo-middle class and bring people out of poverty.