Making India an Upper Middle Income Country in Short Term, a High Income Society in Long Term

[FalconSlayers]

It's gonna be very hard for india to be high income in future.
The most we can achieve is upper/ high level middle income(PPP wise).
One of the reason west is high income is beacuse they had 3rd world manufacturing goods for them very cheaply and west having monopoly of manufacturing expensive goods that the entire world desired.
Now the prices of 3rd world manufacturing is rising and other countries are now competing against expensive western goods with their own goods.


By the time we reach upper middle income even most of africa will be lower-middile level of middle income.
Not to mention we should never have our production and industry leave in the future for long term stability.

The only way I can see is that west will slowly decline from high income high-middle level middle income countries and china will slowly rise from middle level middle Income to high level middle income, while India in future can reach middle-high level middle income country status.
Only few tiny European and asian countries( Switzerland, Singapore etc) can still be high income in future.


So the world will be most developed economically when most of its countries will fall Into " middle income" countries while few tiny countries will be high income and few poor.
Middle income can be further subdivided in lower/middle/upper levels.

Depends on how you define upper middle income and high income. All these are made up with 2 major flaws. Nominal GDP is made up of GDP in current prices (local currency) and assuming the data published is true, is divided by average exchange rate over the financial yer period. And PPP GDP which is calculated by no statistical agency of a country but only the likes of IMF/WB where they find out price level ratios of different countries and divide nominal GDPs with that to come up with that, again susceptible high levels of error.

Take example of UK and Turkey. UK has nearly 70 mn people, Turkey have 85 mn people. Turkey today already has a higher/similar production and consumption of automobiles, steel, cement, electricity, and even inbound foreign tourism. But in nominal terms, Turkey is still an "upper middle income country" borderline at developed levels while UK where factories are shutting down everyday, consumption and production of steel, automobiles etc is declining is a high income advanced economy, simply because of the strength of the british pound (colonial legacy).

Another example is of china, where their consumption and production of major goods and services is comparable to major western european economies and is catching up with USA, but on paper, it's GDP per capita is less than a quarter of UK. Technically, china is already a developed country but nominal terms make it appear as some middle income one. Basically, exchange rate strength decides your status as per WB definitions where countries with much lower goods and services production volume can still have far higher GDP per capita than others.


Then there's the case of fakery, with countries in our islamic neighbourhood and subsaharan africa exaggerating GDP numbers of multiple times with nobody giving af. Countries that produce and consume nothing have as high GDP per capita as India and hence the typical troll trope of "India is good as sub saharan africa and rest of south asia".


The west had a very great headstart in industrial production, as evident here.

List of countries by steel production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of countries by motor vehicle production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

USA used to produce 8 million vehicles and 115 mn tonnes of steel when we were producing 14,000 vehicles and 6 mn tonnes of steel with 3x more people.That was 60 to 70 years ago. Look at other countries on the list to see how big of a shithole India was after colonial exploitation and how much of a gap we've reduced significantly.


Whether people agree with me or not, ideally India will be a developed country the day it crosses 5 MWh electricity consumption per capita.

List of countries by electricity consumption - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[crazywithmath]

So, we won't even make it to $20 Trillion without reforms?

Wonderful!

Large economies (barring the US) can never make it to the upper income bracket. Chongs, despite all their tall claims, will never ever surpass the US in GDPPC (unless the Americans self-destruct and break apart). And this is despite fudging and all - the realistic numbers are way more humble. Indonesians reformed and opened their economy way before we did but have stagnated since. That is the price large emerging economies pay for getting colonized (and sucked dry by their colonizers) and starting large scale industrialization much much later than their European peers.

Think it through, if an avg Indian were to consume on par with an avg European this planet would simply run out of resources. We can become a very decent upper middle income economy/get very close to the upper income threshold but that probably will be it.

Some caveats (or hopium, depending on your perspective);

1. India is unique in the sense that it is reliant on domestic consumption (unlike the afeemchis, who solely relied on exports) and actually innovates (unlike indonesia). So yeah, we never really know what the future holds for us because their is no precedent.

2. There are 'analysts' and 'observers' who consider India to be a 'poorer' (and more populated) avatar of the US for reasons mentioned above. The previous emerging economies did not have the unique combination of buoyant domestic consumption, innovation readiness and higher than usual economic complexity. Make of it what you will.

3. Economic trajectory just cannot be predicted. You can run 1000 simulations on a super computer but still won't be able to account for the kind of disruption the industrial revolution or the mainstreaming of internet was.

 

[randombully]

T

Depends on how you define upper middle income and high income. All these are made up with 2 major flaws. Nominal GDP is made up of GDP in current prices (local currency) and assuming the data published is true, is divided by average exchange rate over the financial yer period. And PPP GDP which is calculated by no statistical agency of a country but only the likes of IMF/WB where they find out price level ratios of different countries and divide nominal GDPs with that to come up with that, again susceptible high levels of error.

Take example of UK and Turkey. UK has nearly 70 mn people, Turkey have 85 mn people. Turkey today already has a higher/similar production and consumption of automobiles, steel, cement, electricity, and even inbound foreign tourism. But in nominal terms, Turkey is still an "upper middle income country" borderline at developed levels while UK where factories are shutting down everyday, consumption and production of steel, automobiles etc is declining is a high income advanced economy, simply because of the strength of the british pound (colonial legacy).

Another example is of china, where their consumption and production of major goods and services is comparable to major western european economies and is catching up with USA, but on paper, it's GDP per capita is less than a quarter of UK. Technically, china is already a developed country but nominal terms make it appear as some middle income one. Basically, exchange rate strength decides your status as per WB definitions where countries with much lower goods and services production volume can still have far higher GDP per capita than others.


Then there's the case of fakery, with countries in our islamic neighbourhood and subsaharan africa exaggerating GDP numbers of multiple times with nobody giving af. Countries that produce and consume nothing have as high GDP per capita as India and hence the typical troll trope of "India is good as sub saharan africa and rest of south asia".


The west had a very great headstart in industrial production, as evident here.

List of countries by steel production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of countries by motor vehicle production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

USA used to produce 8 million vehicles and 115 mn tonnes of steel when we were producing 14,000 vehicles and 6 mn tonnes of steel with 3x more people.That was 60 to 70 years ago. Look at other countries on the list to see how big of a shithole India was after colonial exploitation and how much of a gap we've reduced significantly.


Whether people agree with me or not, ideally India will be a developed country the day it crosses 5 MWh electricity consumption per capita.

https://en.wikiped

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Depends on how you define upper middle income and high income. All these are made up with 2 major flaws. Nominal GDP is made up of GDP in current prices (local currency) and assuming the data published is true, is divided by average exchange rate over the financial yer period. And PPP GDP which is calculated by no statistical agency of a country but only the likes of IMF/WB where they find out price level ratios of different countries and divide nominal GDPs with that to come up with that, again susceptible high levels of error.

Take example of UK and Turkey. UK has nearly 70 mn people, Turkey have 85 mn people. Turkey today already has a higher/similar production and consumption of automobiles, steel, cement, electricity, and even inbound foreign tourism. But in nominal terms, Turkey is still an "upper middle income country" borderline at developed levels while UK where factories are shutting down everyday, consumption and production of steel, automobiles etc is declining is a high income advanced economy, simply because of the strength of the british pound (colonial legacy).

Another example is of china, where their consumption and production of major goods and services is comparable to major western european economies and is catching up with USA, but on paper, it's GDP per capita is less than a quarter of UK. Technically, china is already a developed country but nominal terms make it appear as some middle income one. Basically, exchange rate strength decides your status as per WB definitions where countries with much lower goods and services production volume can still have far higher GDP per capita than others.


Then there's the case of fakery, with countries in our islamic neighbourhood and subsaharan africa exaggerating GDP numbers of multiple times with nobody giving af. Countries that produce and consume nothing have as high GDP per capita as India and hence the typical troll trope of "India is good as sub saharan africa and rest of south asia".


The west had a very great headstart in industrial production, as evident here.

List of countries by steel production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of countries by motor vehicle production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

USA used to produce 8 million vehicles and 115 mn tonnes of steel when we were producing 14,000 vehicles and 6 mn tonnes of steel with 3x more people.That was 60 to 70 years ago. Look at other countries on the list to see how big of a shithole India was after colonial exploitation and how much of a gap we've reduced significantly.


Whether people agree with me or not, ideally India will be a developed country the day it crosses 5 MWh electricity consumption per capita.

List of countries by electricity consumption - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Basically by my standards.
If in future any country's median citizens could have Purchasing power similar to 1960-2025..... western countries( like USA, UK, Germany etc) in ppp standard then I would consider them an upper income country.
If in future the purchasing power of a country's median citizens is similar to Russians,Malaysia,china then middle income.
As for the colonial legacy of UK, it can only last so far, sooner or later the pound will fall if UK remains on its current path.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

More statistics for nerds to compile (attached excel); past and projected GDP per capita (PPP) for all countries 2020-29.
India's rank in
2020: 132
2024: 125
2029: 119 (projected)

Countries overtaken between 2020 ad 2024 (not counting Lebanon & Lanka for having no data available):

Jordan

Nauru

Morocco

Angola

Laos

Countries expected to be overtaken between 2024 and 2029:

Eswatini

Jamaica

Namibia

Uzbekistan

Cape Verde

Bolivia

Lebanon

Sri Lanka

India's GDP per capita of world average would be 42% of global average in 2029 against 31% in 2020. Still less than half of world average and would remain below world average for decades to come.

Exceptionally, if it grows faster vs world or grows over world average in 20-30 years period, that would rather indicate decline of larger countries in rich world which will pull down global average.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

WEP for India in 2025 (projections from October 2024)

GDP at MER (Nominal)
Total: $4.272 trillions
Per capita: $2937

GDP at PPP
Total: $17.365 trillions
Per capita: $11938

 

[FalconSlayers]

World Bank country classifications by income level for 2024-2025

Explore the updated World Bank country income classifications for 2024-2025, highlighting GNI per capita shifts and global economic trends. Discover which countries moved between income categories and understand the factors driving these changes.

blogs.worldbank.org