India to surpass Japan as third largest economy by 2050

Dubai - Study predicts that China would surpass the US in 2035 in the reference scenario for GDP, but would be superseded by the US again in 2098

India will overtake Japan as the third-largest economy in the world by 2050 after the United States and China, according to a study that constructed GDP scenarios using the working age population of countries.
Currently, with a gross domestic product estimated at $2. 8 trillion, India is ranked fifth global economic power after the US, China and Japan, and followed by France and the United Kingdom.
The study, published in the Lancet medical journal, took 2017 as the base year, when India was the seventh largest economy in the world, to calculate the growth prospects of Asia's third largest economy.
As per the study, India, whose growth has been among the highest in the world during the last decade, will become the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2030 and subsequently moved to third spot by 2050.
In contrast to the Lancet forecast that factors a 30-year horizon, Japan Centre for Economic Research said in its study published in December 2019 that India would surpass Japan to become the third largest economy by 2029.
The medical journal's findings have been revealed as India's GDP contracted by 23.9 per cent in the April-June period quarter while the World Bank revised downward its forecast. It now sees an economic contraction of 9.6 per cent, sharper than earlier estimated, for fiscal 2020-21 the backdrop of the devastating impact of the national lockdown and the income shock experienced by households and small urban service firms.
The World Bank's grim forecast comes as a sober reminder that India's aspirations to propel its economy to $5 trillion by 2024-25 will be hardly achievable unless the country attains a growth rate of at least 12 per cent in nominal terms and 9.0 per cent in real terms.  
The Lancet paper warned that there would be huge declines in the working age population in China and India, alongside steady increases in Nigeria, though India would maintain the top position. "By 2100, India was forecasted to still have the largest working-age population in the world, followed by Nigeria, China, and the USA. In our reference scenario, despite fertility rates lower than the replacement level, immigration sustained the US workforce," it added.
The study predicted that China would surpass the US in 2035 in the reference scenario for GDP, but would be superseded by the US again in 2098 as population decline curtails economic growth.
Other countries that rose up in the global rankings by GDP, bolstered by immigration, are Australia and Israel. Despite huge declines in population forecasted this century, Japan will remain the fourth-largest economy in 2100, according to the study. 
issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com