, Columnist
India’s Growth Has Chinese Characteristics
For a country of 1.4 billion people, leaving spending to 100 million consumers will store up trouble in the future.
Not enough purchasing power.
Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
“Fifteen years, 6 governments, 5 prime ministers, one direction. 6 percent average annual GDP growth.” That was the marketing blitz India took to Davos in 2006. The idea was not so much to woo the West overnight as to wean it away from its fascination with China, whose gross domestic product back then was expanding at double-digit rates.
Eighteen years later, India is hosting a second coming-of-age party this week at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine town, though in vastly changed circumstances.