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A GIANT PICKING UP SPEED

Tim Harcourt

Business Spectator, April 4, 2008

Are we ‘hugging the panda’ too much and therefore missing the potential in India where we arguably have stronger cultural ties? And why the comparison with China anyway? Well, it’s partly because of the enormous population of each mega-nation. China has 1.3 billion people, whilst India has 1.05 billion. Lots of people means of lots of potential but it also can mean lots of poverty too. India accounts for one-fifth of the world’s population and around one in three of the world's poor people live in India.

But the comparison is also made because of the relative economic success of China compared to India over the past 20 years. Their relative economic progress over the past twenty years is food for thought. In 1980, China and India were about level pegging when it came to GDP and per capita income. By 2007, however, China was over twice India’s size in terms of GDP and GDP per capita and eight times its size in terms of merchandise exports.

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