Page 48 - DCICAI SOUVENIR 2019
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Indian Economy -
A $5 Trillion dream
CA Girish Jain
Past Chairperson of Doha Chapter of ICAI
In 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance Some sobering projections
(NDA) was voted to power, India was a $1.7 Trillion While optimism and ambition are crucial for nation
economy back then. India seems shining and highly building, a reality check every now and then is
excited by adding one Trillion US dollars in the last essential too. Recently PTI latest edition of Economy
five years to become a $2.7 Trillion economy, one Watch, where Ernst & Young (EY) admitted, India
of the fastest-growing Trillion-dollar economy in the will need to grow by 9% every year for five years
world and 6th largest in 2019. continuously and raise aggregate investment rate
to 38% of GDP to achieve target of a $5 Trillion
Recently, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi economy.
has set an ambitious target for India when his
Independence Day speech articulated the EY also said assuming India grows by projected
aspiration for India to become a $5 Trillion economy 7% in the current fiscal year ending Mar 2020, the
in the next five years, making India the fourth- size of the economy will grow to $3 Trillion from
largest economy behind US, China and Japan. $2.7 Trillion in the previous year. It will have to
grow by 9% in each of the five subsequent years
Top government officials from finance ministry to take the size of the economy to USD 3.3 Trillion
have started claiming that all right conditions exist in FY21, $3.6 Trillion in FY22, $4.1 Trillion in FY23,
with a strong policy driven governance model both incremental capital-output ratio 4.5 Trillion in FY24
at center and states. I even heard Department of and $5 Trillion in FY25.
Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)
Secretary G. Mohapatra announcing, “We are in Roadblocks
cusp of a great opportunity and not only targeting If I may ask, is 8-9% growth possible? We have 3
$5 Trillion economy by 2024 but $10 Trillion good examples pulled out from history– first is the
economy by 2030”. Soviet Union, that emerged out of the second world
war was extremely poor. Between 1950 and 1970,
the Soviet economy grew exponentially, regularly
clocking over 10% a year. This, despite the fact that
it did not have capitalism, and economic growth
was driven by the state. The collapse of USSR left
a Russia that was poor by western standards but
still wealthy compared to the rest of the world. The
second is China, which began growing at over 10%
in the early 1990s and continued for several years
thereafter. And the 3rd is US, which between 1965
and 1975, despite already having a fairly high per
capita GDP, was also able to grow at an average of
more than 10%.
