Will India Overtake China In Modi’s First Year?

India is expected to release GDP data on Friday and that is expected to show the economy growing

faster than China for a second quarter in a row. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo courtesy of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been celebrating his first year in office. One of his ambitions is to transform India into the fastest growing major economy.

Earlier this year, the India government introduced a new way of calculating GDP. Some economists have already expressed their doubts over the new methodology.

“The economy is not as strong as the GDP numbers might suggest,” said Shilan Shah, India Economist at Capital Economics. “The numbers should not have any bearing on policies and both the central bank as well as the government should look at other activity indicators.“

The median estimate from a Reuters poll of economists put GDP growth at 7.3 percent in the January-March quarter, slowing from 7.5 percent in the previous quarter.

For the 2014/15 fiscal year ending in March growth is expected at 7.4 percent, up from 6.9 percent in 2013/14, using the new series Reuters reports.

That is a very promising turnaround from the previous data series that showed the economy was still struggling to gain momentum after posting two successive years of growth below 5 percent.