Five incredible facts about India’s fast-growing economy

A thriving nation with a population of around 1.37 billion people, India is one of the world’s largest economies. It seeks to achieve an ambitious target of becoming a $5 trillion economy in the next five years.

Here are some interesting facts that you may not have known about the country.

India’s economy has nearly sextupled in size in less than 20 years

At the turn of the millennium the country’s gross domestic product was approximately $459 billion, according to the World Bank. Last year, it generated the equivalent of $2.726 trillion. That’s an expansion of just short of six times in less than two decades.

© Getty Images / Sayan Chuenudomsavad

India has the fastest growing major economy in the world

The South Asian country’s economy is expected to grow by 7.4 percent in the 2019 fiscal year, compared with a projected 6.3 percent growth in China and just 2.5 percent in the United States. The impressive growth is a step down from the nine percent expansion that the Indian economy enjoyed from 2003 to 2008, before growth was halted by the global financial crisis.

India’s annual GDP surpassed France’s last year, and is projected to outpace the UK and Japan soon

India’s 2017 gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.726 trillion was just short of France’s GDP of $2.778 trillion, the World Bank says. The country with the seventh largest GDP, India is now expected to reach $5.9 trillion by 2025, according to global consulting firm IHS Markit. It has projected India to outpace the United Kingdom by the end of the year to become one of the world’s top five economies. It will then take the country just six more years to overtake Japan as the world’s third largest economy, the study suggests.

Agriculture accounts for 50 percent of jobs in India

The world’s largest producer of milk and the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, India also has a thriving trade in seafood. Overall, agricultural production accounts for more than half of all jobs in the country.

Tea garden workers pluck tea leaves inside Durgabari Tea Estate on the outskirts of Agartala, India © Reuters / Jayanta Dey

Fuel supplies are India’s key export, accounting for 15 percent of the country’s total exports

India’s total exports of petroleum products account for over a tenth of the gross value of outbound shipments. The country generates the most revenue in exports of its mineral fuels, mainly petrol, diesel, naphtha, fuel oil and lubricants. In 2018, it exported about $48.3 billion worth of petroleum products, much of it already refined.

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