India Leaves UK Behind To Become The 5th Largest Economy

By siliconindia | Friday, 23 December 2016, 05:02 Hrs

BENGALURU: India’s stakes are increasing high on the world forum, and driven by a rapid growth of the Indian economy, India has finally managed to overtake United Kingdom in size of the economy for the first time after nearly 100 years, as per the Business Insider.

According to a report published in Forbes, this dramatic shift has occurred because of the rapid growth of the Indian economy and the downslide of the pound, as UK is still grappling with the aftermath of Brexit.

"India was expected to overtake the UK GDP in 2020, this current development has been accelerated by the nearly 20 pct decline in the value of the pound, consequently UK's 2016 GDP of GBP 1.87 trillion converts to $2.29 trillion at exchange rate of GBP 0.81 per $1, whereas India's GDP of INR 153 trillion converts to $2.30 trillion at exchange rate of INR 66.6 per $1," the report said.

It’s very interesting to note that Center for Economics and Business Research had predicted India to surpass British economy by 2020, but India has achieved this milestone much earlier to the surprise of many.

This gap is expected to widen as Indian economy is growing at the rate of 6-8 pct, whereas the British economy is growing at the sluggish rate of 1-2 pct.

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju said, "India leaves UK behind and becomes the 5th largest GDP after USA, China, Japan and Germany." Earlier, International Monetary Fund (IMF) had also predicted that India would overtake United Kingdom by the end of this fiscal.