Economy of India

Goldman Sachs: India will overtake the US to become the world's second largest economy by 2075, 07.10.2023.

A Goldman Sachs expert mentions demographics, innovation and capital investments among the factors that will contribute to the country's economic growth.

India will become the second largest economy in the world after China by 2075, surpassing the United States, said Santanu Sengupta, an expert on the Asian country at Goldman Sachs Research, in a recent article.

According to Sengupta, the main factor of India's success is the dependency ratio, the index that expresses the ratio of the working population to the dependent population. The lower this index is, the higher the percentage of healthy working-age adults in a society. "In the next two decades, India's dependency ratio will be one of the lowest among regional economies," the expert said, stressing that this low index will create "a window" to increase production capacity and to develop infrastructure and services.

The analyst indicated that the country's large population is "clearly an opportunity," but the challenge of "productively using the labor force" by increasing the labor market participation rate persists.

Innovation and investments

However, demographics will not be the only factor contributing to Indian economic growth. Santanu stresses that innovation and increasing the productivity of workers will also play an important role.

In this context, the expert further notes that capital investments will help the Indian economy. Taking into account the factor of favorable demographics, India's savings rate is likely to increase while observing a decrease in the dependency ratio, income growth and financial sector development, which would create a capital reserve to drive new investments.

Risks

It should be noted that India's manufacturing activity rate has declined over the past 15 years, indicating certain risks and the need to create more employment opportunities, especially for women. In a June report, Goldman Sachs mentioned that "only 20% of working-age women in India are employed," CNBC reported.

Goldman Sachs noted that the Indian economy is "strongly driven by domestic demand," unlike other countries in the region, and its growth is mainly based on domestic consumption and investment, which is why India has a current account deficit. However, exports of goods and services have grown recently, which also indicates progress.

Yandex Translate from Spanish

https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/472817-goldman-sachs-india-convertirse-segunda-economia

There's no way India could overtake the USA. This current Indian government is a disaster for our economy. Just Google the unemployment rate in India, and you will get the picture. Even highly educated engineers are having difficulties finding jobs in India, as we are a service-based economy, not an industrial-based economy like China and Russia.

India needs to pull the same trick as the Chinese did with the special economic zones.

There is just too much red tape and the tax burden in India is way too heavy to attract enough foreign investment into factories. If the special economic zones produce products for export, there is also no need to strictly enforce tariffs and the like.

Dismissing Chinese BRI investment was also a major mistake IMHO. China would have been the best choice as a partner to upgrade Indian infrastructure on the cheap with good quality. As others have said comparing the experience of the Indian and Indonesian high speed rail effort is illuminating.

Too much focus on services and not enough in industry like you said.

The Indian economy has been struggling since 2010. Modi’s policies have aggravated the situation. India is dominated by a coalition of Maharashtrian brahmins and gujarati, marwari banias (traders). The other communities are left with little resources. Thus, these groups keep making huge profits at the expense of the rest of the people in India.

Notice that the two most frequented Indian defense forums are also controlled by gujaratis despite the fact that they have ZERO presence in the armed forces. Modi as several people have always mentioned is a ClA agent. Incidentally, Moraji Desai, the last gujarati to have become a PM of India before Modi was also a ClA agent who was exposed much later by Seymour Hersh.

Sey Hersch has info on Modi? Would love any links you got.

Yeah the Indian defense forums are pretty hardcore in trying to push for western kit. They genuinely think they are magic or something just like many nafo types do here as well in America. Very little nuance. Some very decent posters still on two of the forums I watch. Not all have fallen into the echo chamber.

I will say one thing it is good that India is trying to go independent and build up their own MIC.

TMA1 wrote:Sey Hersch has info on Modi? Would love any links you got.

Maybe he has, IDK. I said Hersh had previously exposed another Gujarati PM.

Re links here is one from a senior member of bjp. Several such posts exist on Twitter. Look at all the important people within bjp dying one after another. Military's first service chief suddenly dies in a helicopter crash. All these events are not coincidences.

https://twitter.com/gopal__goudiyo/status/1283404931681128449?s=20

Sujoy wrote:

TMA1 wrote:Sey Hersch has info on Modi? Would love any links you got.

Maybe he has, IDK. I said Hersh had previously exposed another Gujarati PM.

Re links here is one from a senior member of bjp. Several such posts exist on Twitter. Look at all the important people within bjp dying one after another. Military's first service chief suddenly dies in a helicopter crash. All these events are not coincidences.

https://twitter.com/gopal__goudiyo/status/1283404931681128449?s=20

This sh*t goes way deeper than people realise. The entire current BJP administration is a CIA stooge.

This is the son of our Indian foreign minister, S. Jayshankar

There's no way India could overtake the USA.

The thing about the US is that it is a house of cards based on the US dollar being the international currency of choice.

They are destroying that for themselves because they are using their currency as a weapon, which will destroy it...

Once it became rich and powerful it could remain rich and remain powerful by using its money and power to buy up new technology and bribe people to keep rivals weak and fighting each other. It also made a lot of money creating wars... and forcing its so called allies to buy its weapons at inflated prices.

It doesn't have friends or allies, it has interests and it will drop an ally the instant they are no longer any use...

If they were a person they will likely end up alone... and paranoid that everyone just wants their money.

Not 100% true. Like it or not US companies are strong and many of them like Microsoft have a monopoly on the entire world. They have very attractive companies.

The world's dependency on US dollar to be a leader is scary but it's not the only thing.

What indian company is famous ? None. Who like Bollyhood ? Indians only. Who want to switch to indian culture ? Only some fanatic hippies. India can't be a superpower.

GarryB wrote:

The thing about the US is that it is a house of cards based on the US dollar being the international currency of choice.

They are destroying that for themselves because they are using their currency as a weapon, which will destroy it...

You're right, but if the US economy falls, then the Indian economy would also take a big hit in the process.  We don't have a self sufficient industrial-based economy and our service sector based enconomy is intertwine with US economy. Indian IT firms and other big tech companies would all get destroyed way before any collapse of the US economy.

Isos wrote:

What indian company is famous ? None. Who like Bollyhood ? Indians only. Who want to switch to indian culture ? Only some fanatic hippies.

Bollywood movies are total cringefests. Even the worst of Hollywood's wokecentric movies are way better than the garbage produced in Bollywood. 

Indians only. Who want to switch to indian culture ? Only some fanatic hippies.

How do you define Indian culture?

While this might look like typical Indian culture to any ignorant foreigner,
       


Or this




But this is also Indian culture


And also this




So the people who claim to love Indian culture are totally wrong and willfully ignorant about Indian ethenic, cultural and regional diversity.

By the way, Bollywood only represents the North Indian cowbelt Hindi-speaking majority population.

Sprut-B wrote:This sh*t goes way deeper than people realise. The entire current BJP administration is a CIA stooge.

Observer Foundation is owned by Ambanis who are gujaratis themselves and have huge investments in US and UK. India's current FM got his job despite the fact that he is not an elected representative because his dad was a diplomat.

But this is also Indian culture

This also isn't interesting to anyone. People would visit to see that but certainly not live like this.

Meanwhile most indians want to live like US citizens.

Meanwhile most indians want to live like US citizens.

I am sure there would be a lot they would like to change... and it seems living like US citizens is not sustainable.

WION: Indian rupee increasingly challenging dollar hegemony, 07.18.2023.

New agreements between India and other countries in the region show that the influence of the Indian rupee in the trade and financial sphere continues to grow, challenging the hegemony of the US dollar, Indian outlet WION (World Is One News) reports. Arrangements for settlements in local currencies have already been reached, in particular, with the governments of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, which are currently among India's largest trading partners.

And now, just a few days after India and the United Arab Emirates signed agreements to make trade settlements using local currencies, it looks like the influence of the Indian rupee continues to grow. According to the latest information, India and Indonesia will soon also conduct mutual settlements and real-time trading in their local currencies.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, along with his Indonesian counterpart Mulyani Indrawati, announced the start of economic and financial dialogue between the two countries during a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors.

Indonesia is India's second largest trading partner in the ASEAN region. With a trade turnover of $38.9 billion in the last fiscal year, it ranked sixth among all of India's trading partners, with a trade surplus of $19 billion.

Earlier, Sri Lanka decided to officially recognize the Indian rupee as a foreign currency. The President of this country, Ranil Wickramasinghe, in his statement hinted that Sri Lanka will carry out trade settlements using the Indian rupee in volumes corresponding to the share of the US dollar.

Meanwhile, the UAE is India's third largest trading partner for 2022-2023, as well as the second largest export destination for India. The United Arab Emirates is also considered one of the fastest growing economies.

Since the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, many countries have realized that they need to expand the range of currencies used for billing and settlement of trades, and therefore it has become a smart move to look for possible alternatives. 

Given agreements with the UAE, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, it looks like the Indian rupee's usage area continues to grow, challenging the hegemony of the US dollar.

https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2023-07-18/WION-indijskaya-rupiya-vsyo-aktivnee.

Not 100% true. Like it or not US companies are strong and many of them like Microsoft have a monopoly on the entire world.

They are bullies and bastards and set themselves up as monopolies because they are bastards and if most customers had other options they would probably prefer to deal with someone else.

Microsoft would love you to think there is no alternative, but there are plenty of alternatives that are not given a chance because Microsoft does everything it can to force people to remain with them.

Monsanto and John Deere and Apple and Amazon... all bastards.... Amazon makes billions and pays the workers that earn it all that money minimum wage and they fire people if they get sick so they don't have to pay anything in healthcare except premiums... which I bet they get a special deal consider the pay the premiums but the workers never get any healthcare benefits because if they get sick they get fired...

Not just bastards... also scum.

Burger King got fined here recently because they had a worker at one of their stores who was on a salary working all hours of the day so they didn't have to hire someone else. The hours he had to do getting all his work done meant he was actually earning less that anyone else working in that store... less than minimum wage, which is why they got fined.

They don't care.

The world's dependency on US dollar to be a leader is scary but it's not the only thing.

I wouldn't call it a dependency now, and the demand for the US dollar to use in international transactions was what made it possible for them to print as much as they want, but as it gets dropped it is going to really struggle when they print and print and borrow and borrow... over 30 trillion debt and they print as much of their own money as they like... tell me there is no problem there?

The Pentagon doesn't audit itself and doesn't know where most of the money goes... secret projects obviously... the US is the first country in history to try to deal with corruption by first of all ignoring that it exists, and second of all just trying to print more money than the thieves can steal... and only the first part seems to work.

What indian company is famous ? None. Who like Bollyhood ? Indians only. Who want to switch to indian culture ? Only some fanatic hippies. India can't be a superpower.

The fact of the matter is that western culture is broken and there is no debate or discussion allowed in that regard... the point is not to replace US culture with India culture or French culture or Russian culture or any other culture... why does it have to be one culture dominating at all?

Why can't Indian culture dominate in India? French culture dominate in France, etc etc.

You're right, but if the US economy falls, then the Indian economy would also take a big hit in the process.

It depends... if it is a collapse and violence, or if it is just a decline of a super power like Britain and France... Any change is difficult to start with.... it has taken Russia 23 years to get off the western white powder, and it was really only possible because the west essentially rejected them rather than the other way around.

With over a billion consumers there will always be countries wanting to be part of and trade with India and that includes China if you let them.

For Russia its technology and skills but no white colonial mentality, they make a useful alternative to dealing with the west for the rest of the world.

The US has to deal with their elite and powerful because they are selfish self centred bastards who care for nothing and no one but themselves... a bit of a French revolution might be in order for the US.

We don't have a self sufficient industrial-based economy and our service sector based enconomy is intertwine with US economy. Indian IT firms and other big tech companies would all get destroyed way before any collapse of the US economy.

Industry is important, but you have an opportunity to shift from providing services and IT to the west to providing it to the rest of the world.... a much bigger market... a market that is new and growing and wont be dominated by western monopoly countries with the might of their embassy and their deep pockets winning contracts from you that they don't deserve.

Meanwhile most indians want to live like US citizens.

If everyone lived like consumerist Americans the human world would end and it will be time for something else to take over... maybe that is the game.... Earth... for a time the dinosaurs ruled and before them something else dominated... at one time probably plants or insects were the top of the food chain, and right now it is human beings screwing everything up... who knows what comes next... spiders, octopus, sentient bacteria...

Given agreements with the UAE, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, it looks like the Indian rupee's usage area continues to grow, challenging the hegemony of the US dollar.

Indeed... it makes no sense to have to buy US dollars for India to trade with its neighbours and major trade partners that are not the US.

India-Russia train deal back on track after dispute resolution, 07.20.2023.

The joint project to build 120 trains under the ‘Make in India’ program will continue after shareholding issues were settled “at the highest level”.

Moscow and New Delhi have resolved a dispute over a joint venture worth an estimated $6 billion to build and maintain 120 trains for India’s ambitious Vande Bharat Express rail service, it was reported on Wednesday.

The joint venture to construct semi-high-speed trains involves the government-owned, publicly traded Indian company Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and Metrowagonmash – part of Transmashholding, Russia’s largest rail manufacturer. The project is back on track after contractual issues were ironed out, Indian media have reported. 

The venture was formed last year to bid for the Vande Bharat tender, with Metrowagonmash receiving a 70% stake while RVNL and a smaller Russian partner, Locomotive Electronic Systems (LES), would gain shares of 25% and 5% respectively. The bid won the tender after offering the lowest price of 1.2 billion rupees ($14.61 million) per train, seeing off rivals such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom Transport, and Swiss Stadler Rail.

However, after winning the contract, RVNL insisted on a 69% stake to replace Metrowagonmash as the majority shareholder, citing Western sanctions on Russia and claiming it would create “smoother movement” for the project. It also argued that it would be a “confidence-building measure” as the project would involve importing spare parts for Vande Bharat trains from Europe and the US. The demand led to a breakdown in the agreement after the Russian enterprise opposed the move.

The dispute has now reportedly been resolved “at the highest level” between the two governments, leading to Metrowagonmash retaining a majority stake. On Tuesday, RVNL informed the financial markets that a purchase deal had been signed between its wholly-owned subsidiary Kinet Railway Solutions Limited and Russia’s Metrowagonmash and LES. 

The Vande Bharat Express is a short-distance train service operated by Indian Railways since 2019 across 25 routes. The first of over a dozen semi-high-speed trains currently running in India was developed at Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory. The new trains for the service will be built locally under the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. Indian Railways has allocated $1.8 billion for manufacturing of the trains and another $2.5 billion for their maintenance.

The first Vande Bharat prototype train must meet a June 2025 deadline for testing and trials, pending approval. Once given the green light, between 12 and 18 trains will be manufactured annually at the Marathwada Rail Coach Factory in Latur, Maharashtra, and maintenance will be provided by the consortium for the next 35 years.

https://www.rt.com/india/579947-india-russia-bande-bharat-train-deal/

World Is One News (WION): India to become world's third largest economy by 2027, 07.28.2023.

India will become one of the three largest economies in the world by 2027-2028, provided that the current growth rate is maintained, WION reports citing a State Bank of India report. The Indian Bank also predicts that by 2027 India's share of global GDP will overcome the 4% mark.

A promising forecast for the Indian economy has been released, which will give a serious boost to India's global ambitions. 

That's right, India's economy will soon become one of the three largest in the world, such is the forecast presented in the report of the Indian bank State Bank of India. According to the SBI ECOWRAP report, India is likely to become the third largest economy in the world by 2027-2028.
 
The report notes that India will achieve this goal by 2027 - 28 goals thanks to economic reforms carried out since 2014. Previously, it was predicted that the Indian economy will reach the third position by 2029. In 2014, when the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, India's economy ranked 10th in the world. The report said that at current growth rates, India is likely to surpass Japan and Germany in 2027.

Curiously, the growth of the Indian economy between 2022 and 2027 exceeded the current size of the Australian economy of $1.8 trillion.
 
The report also predicts that India's economy is likely to grow by $0.75 trillion every two years, which means the country will reach $20 trillion by 2047, at least based on current growth rates. Moreover, by 2027, India's share of global GDP will surpass 4 percent.
 
The economies of at least two Indian states will pass the $500 billion mark by 2027-2028: Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital, Mumbai, and Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. In the SBI report, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, is called the "Land of the Midnight Sun". To top it off, the economies of major Indian states will be larger in 2027 than those of some Asian and European countries such as Vietnam and Norway.

https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2023-07-29/WION-Indiya-stanet-tretej-po

Daily Telegraph (DT) Observer: The West is trying to draw India into its orbit, but the country is getting closer to Russia - China, 08.02.2023.

Although few people have been able to conclude serious trade deals with India lately, with the help of trade, the West hopes to draw the country into its orbit, writes The Daily Telegraph columnist Shankar Singham. However, India's upcoming national elections next year could make it harder to move away from Russia and China.

Many countries have tried and failed to conclude a meaningful trade agreement with India. The United States and European countries have been doing this for decades, and Australia has managed to conclude a relatively superficial agreement. The only country that has been successful in this regard in recent years has been the United Arab Emirates. The second country could be Great Britain.

According to The Daily Telegraph columnist Shankar Singham, the benefits will not only be economic. In a rapidly changing world, India is becoming increasingly important as a geostrategic player in its own right. In the near future, New Delhi's decisions will be of great importance, the author believes. A trade deal with the UK is a chance to draw India into the economic orbit of the West - and move it away from the strategic opponents of Russia and China.

According to Singham, India is following an unorthodox diplomatic course, which is largely determined by its uneasy relationship with trade policy. Ever since the government of Jawaharlal Nehru, India has often found itself side by side with countries with which " the benefits of an alliance have been mainly to oppose America and the West in liberalizing trade ."
 
As a result, India, as the observer believes, "found itself in an extremely uncomfortable position ", as it depends on Russian military equipment, while the West is increasingly demanding that it choose a side against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine. For example, New Delhi is already playing an important role in the informal Quad alliance, which unites the US, Australia, India and Japan, trying to ensure security in the Indo-Pacific region.

The West hopes that through trade deals they will draw India into their orbit. However, such a course would be fraught with significant difficulties. In the 30 years since India abandoned import substitution, it has done little to remove regulatory barriers to trade. But in order for India to realize its potential and become the world's largest economy, it needs to overcome internal barriers to development.
 
It is in this context that the UK is trying to negotiate a trade deal. It is assumed that the deal can be concluded before the end of the year, before the start of the election race in India. At the same time, achieving this in such a short time will be " not easy, but very important."

However, "it is by no means clear that even a 'neutral' attitude towards the West " will emerge in India, Singham said. With India embroiled in a struggle between the West and the China-Russia axis, it may be impossible for the country not to join either side. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming elections and voter pressure could make it harder for the country to move away from Moscow and Beijing.

https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2023-08-03/Obozrevatel-DT-Zapad-pitaetsya-vtyanut

And Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming elections and voter pressure could make it harder for the country to move away from Moscow and Beijing.

Reading that you would think they have good relations with China... when they really don't have great relations.

Both countries agree with and cooperate with BRICS, but there are problems and tensions... in fact India is probably more friendly towards the US than with China, but it all comes down to what India wants... in BRICS it is a pole of power that has its own independent say and wont be sanctioned or pressured to do this or that from another member.

India is not considered part of HATO or the west and they try to tell them who they can or cannot buy weapons from... but then a battered wife still believes her husband loves her really.... it is just hard for him to show it so he uses his fists...

India has become Bharat: Delhi has successfully forced the West to take action, by Dmitry Kosyrev for RIANOVOSTI. 09.11.2023.

The most interesting thing is who and how ensured the current result of the G20 summit in Delhi. The result is known: a turning point has been reached in the battles with the collective West, which has long tried to isolate Russia. But what mechanics worked here?

There are many answers. This is both a time factor - that is, the failure of the “Ukrainian operation” against Russia, and the gloomy economic realities of the existence of the West. If we talk about purely diplomatic technologies, then the non-arrival of the top leaders of Russia and China in Delhi turned out to be effective . But there is also such a factor as India’s chairmanship.

It lasted a year, and the initial situation was clear. The mechanism of collective prevention of global economic crises by the key powers has come to complete paralysis because approximately half of the G-20 decided to use it for left-wing, extraneous purposes - to suppress competitors in the person of Russia and China. The Indians saw what it looked like a year ago at the same summit in Indonesia : an undignified farce to find out who was taking a group photo with whom, a fight over the Western wording of the final documents.

If this were not enough, Indians were confronted with a similar reality in the scores of ministerial and other meetings that took place throughout the year and formed a key part of the G-20's work as a mechanism. The same paralysis and attempts by one half of the participants to break against the wall of disgust of the other half. No agreement was reached at any of these meetings. What should the chairman do - hold the middle, as the previous chairman (Indonesia) did, and persuade everyone to live together: yes, this is also necessary. But not only that.

Among the many Indian publications on the topic of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s plan was , we can recommend at least this one , which outlines in great detail why India needs the G20 of leading states. This list may seem boring to some, but it’s a matter of keeping track of the never-ending fight over the wording of the final document.

Here it is necessary to recall that such documents are a way of communication between diplomacy and the outside world, a report on the results of work. But this and many other meetings are not the end in themselves. And among the real goals, from India’s point of view, were these: changes in global health are needed, in any weather of world diplomacy. And in finance, the availability of cheap loans should be equal for everyone. And in the global energy sector. To achieve this, the global majority, called the South, can and should launch cooperation programs - with or without the West.

These were not just the wishes of Indian diplomats - in all situations they sought the consent and participation in such programs of, if not all, then some of the participants. The idea of ​​Delhi's chairmanship was that it was necessary to launch re-globalization, and if some of the world's key economies are not ready to do this, so much the worse for them, we will do without them. In particular, it was the Indians who promoted the expansion of the group to include the African Union along with the European Union. By the way, this means that we are now calling this team “Twenty” for the last time.

This included the speech of the President of Brazil , the country that has now become the next chairman of the G20 . He said that the G20 is not a place for disputes about Ukraine at all : the world majority needs this mechanism so that the disputes of some powers do not interfere with the lives of others. This completely coincided with Narendra Modi’s speech.

Probably everyone noticed the news that on the eve of the summit, Modi’s supporters (that is, the ruling majority) in the Indian parliament allegedly decided to rename the country from India to Bharat. The second word was written on a sign installed at the chairman's place. What does this have to do with our summit? The most direct.

For starters, this isn't really a renaming. It's a frustrating task for us to have to figure out which cards or texts to replace - much to the dismay of the general public. But for every Indian it is clear that their country has long been called both India (that is, Hind) and Bharat. The semantic difference here is that the first option rather denotes territory, native land, while the second carries a different meaning - a nation, a power.

So, the triumphant comments of the Indians following the summit say: their country has shown the world that it is truly Bharat. She took the helm of global leadership in her hands and completed her task successfully. Needless to say, Russia is more than happy with this situation.

https://ria.ru/20230911/indiya-1895390519.html

Payments in national currencies between Russia and India grew 5 times in 2023, 09.28.2023.

Settlements in national currencies between Russia and India increased fivefold in monetary terms in 2023 year-on-year, while the average total of transactions in the first half of the year increased by 83%, said the deputy chairman of the executive board of the Russian bank Sberbank Anatoly Popov.

"Sberbank is a key banking partner for corporate clients working on domestic currencies with India. This year the settlement volumes with India have grown five times in monetary terms compared to the same period last year," Popov stressed on the sidelines of the SberVED 2023: India conference.

In the first half of 2023, the number of foreign trade transactions with New Delhi conducted in domestic currencies through Moscow's largest lender has increased almost fourfold, while the average transaction amount grew by 83%, he added.

Pharmaceuticals, food, machinery and equipment, as well as chemical products are among the most demanded goods for import.

At the end of August, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi indicated that the trade exchange between India and Russia grew by 190% in the first half of 2023, about 33,500 billion dollars.

Yandex Translate from Spanish

https://sputniknews.lat/20230928/los-pagos-en-monedas-nacionales-entre-rusia-y-la-india-crecieron-5-veces-en-2023-1144195093.html

Indian diesel flows to EU reach all-time peak amid rise in oil imports from Russia, 10.13.2023.

Deliveries averaged 290,000 barrels per day in September, according to ship-tracking data.

EU purchases of Indian diesel surged to an all-time high in September, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing ship-tracking data from Vortexa, Kpler, and LSEG. The increase comes after New Delhi boosted imports of Russian oil, much of which is used to make Indian diesel.  

According to the news agency, Indian diesel deliveries to the bloc totaled between 280,000 and 303,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the reporting period, roughly half of India’s total diesel exports for the month.

“This trade flow was mainly attributed to the opened arbitrage for India-origin cargoes to head West, with traders potentially preparing for the loss of Russian diesel barrels to Türkiye as well due to the export ban,” Vortexa’s head of APAC analysis, Serena Huang, told Reuters.

In September, Moscow introduced a diesel and gasoline export ban in order to stabilize the domestic fuel market. The restrictions on diesel exports were partially eased on October 6.

India’s diesel exports to the EU in October have thus far been significantly lower than last month, at around 75,000 bpd. However, industry experts attribute the drop to refinery turnarounds and the surge in local demand due to the Diwali festive season.

Much of India’s diesel is made from Russian oil, imports of which by local refineries surged by 80% year-on-year in September, according to the Financial Express. Vessel-tracking data from Vortexa showed that New Delhi bought an average of 1.56 million bpd of Russia’s Urals oil last month, compared to 865,000 bpd in the same period last year.

India joined China as Russia’s largest oil importers earlier this year, taking advantage of discounts as Moscow sought to attract new markets after losing Western buyers amid Ukraine-related sanctions. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak told RT Arabic on Friday that Moscow has since slashed the discounts, which currently amount to $11-12 per barrel, compared to as much as $38 offered at the beginning of the year. However, analysts suggest that New Delhi will continue to ramp up purchases of Russian oil, as it is still cheaper than crude from the Middle East.

content://com.android.chrome.FileProvider/offline-cache/99c5a467-e6dd-4869-a7d7-eb2926676656.mhtml

India to become world’s third largest economy – S&P, 12.05.2023.

The South Asian nation will be the fastest-growing emerging market in the coming years, the rating agency said.

India is set to overtake the EU’s powerhouse, Germany, in terms of economic might by the end of the decade, the S&P Global Ratings has projected.

In its latest report, the Global Credit Outlook 2024, the rating agency predicted that the South Asian country will become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030. Currently, India is in fifth place, behind the US, China, Germany, and Japan in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), respectively, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) data.

“A paramount test will be whether India can become the next big global manufacturing hub, an immense opportunity. Developing a strong logistics framework will be key in transforming India from a services-dominated economy into a manufacturing-dominant one,” the S&P’s report reads.

According to the agency, the digital market, primarily financial and consumer technology, and the automotive sector, are the fundamental driving forces behind India’s economic growth.

The S&P projects that India will be the fastest-growing emerging market over the next three years, with economic growth reaching 6.4% next year and 7% in 2026. The figures, however, represent a decrease from the 7.2% recorded in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

Last year, the S&P predicted that India would overtake Germany and Japan by 2030. However, the growth forecast presented by the agency at the time was more modest and stood at an average of 6.3% annually by the end of the decade.

At the same time, Germany, currently the world’s third-largest economy, expects its economy to contract by 0.4% in 2023 due to high inflation and energy prices. The EU’s economic powerhouse suffered a contraction in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, entering a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

https://www.rt.com/india/588537-india-third-largest-economy/

Voice of the Global South: How India seeks to reshape the global climate deal, by Anil Padmanabhan for RT. 12.12.2023.

New Delhi’s pitch to host COP33 in 2028 is instrumental in giving the world's most populous country leverage in the international fight to save the planet.

Addressing the first day of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Dubai on 1 December, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that his country could host the conference (COP33) in 2028.

The surprise announcement echoed one he made eight years ago, when India teamed up with France to introduce the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on the first day of the COP meeting in Paris.  Expectations then were that India would be intransigent at the negotiations, forcing a stalemate at a time when the world was desperately seeking a blueprint to fend off the growing threat of climate change.

In fact, India’s proactive stance paved the way for a historic climate deal wherein member countries committed to cut emissions by 2030 and submit to a review at this year’s meeting in Dubai. It was a defining moment for Indian climate diplomacy, which until then had been perceived as a compulsive naysayer which continued to insist that developed nations had to bear the responsibility for the legacy of carbon emissions.

Accordingly, India backed a deal which compelled individual member nations to adhere to differing sets of commitments. The updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), approved in 2022, aims to reduce emissions intensity by 45% by 2030.

It is not that India has abandoned its stance. In fact, PM Modi alluded to it in his pitch when he said at the COP meeting in Dubai that “India has set an example for the world to have a perfect balance between ecology and economy. Despite India having 17 percent of the world's population, our share in global carbon emissions is less than four percent.” India reinvented its approach to climate policy and went from being part of the problem to part of the solution.

It was able to do so by aligning its domestic objectives, in this case green growth, with its international commitments, thereby eliminating friction in the national political discourse. 

At the same time, by creating the ISA, India emerged as the co-owner of an international institution in the climate-adjacent space. While the recalibration of its climate 'persona' provided India with flexibility, the creation of institutions like the ISA has allowed it the freedom to negotiate on different platforms and on specific subjects. The ISA has focused on garnering investment and technology for solar installations in the global South.

As a result, India has gone from being a reluctant player to emerging as a key global forse in battling climate change. The pitch to host COP33 is therefore a continuation of this strategy and indicates the maturing of India in global climate politics.

COP Tactics

First off, by offering to host the COP summit in 2028, India is reiterating that it is not going to walk back the commitments made at Paris and the promise to go net zero by 2070.

India is also reinforcing its newly acquired diplomatic agility by establishing co-leadership positions in multilateral and minilateral frameworks. The idea is to leverage these platforms along with bilateral engagements to secure finance and technology to enable domestic decarbonisation.

It is estimated that developing countries, excluding China, will need about $2 trillion every year to enable climate mitigation. While this estimate is staggering, even the financing made available so far has come in the form of loans. To make matters work, several countries are facing a debt crisis in the aftermath of the turmoil first brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the same time, most of the technology, including for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, is located in developed countries.

Furthermore, 2030 is a key year in the battle against climate change. It will see whether the commitments made in Paris have been honoured. Hence, by offering to host COP, India is in a strategic position to shape the contours of the next global climate deal.

Today India's nominal GDP is only $3.5 trillion. Its goal is to evolve into a developed, $15 trillion economy by 2047. In order to do so, it will need continued access to energy.National priorities will alter depending on how the intervening negotiations which take place before COP33. So far, India has not shared anything with the public. 

While renewable energy capacity has been witnessing a rapid increase in the country over the past decade, India will still need to rely on fossil fuel to feed its growing demand for energy. The country will therefore be very keen on steering away from a new climate agreement which denies it this option.

However, in order for New Delhi’s plan to be operationalised, it will have to be accorded the right to host COP33. It is not a done deal. For example, Australia had offered to host COP31 in 2026, but will now have to compete with Türkiye, which threw its hat in the ring last week. 

If India does end up hosting COP in 2028, it will be the second time – the country hosted COP8 in 2002.

Regardless, it is clear that increasingly India, driven by the sheer size of its population and potential economic growth, is being counted as an important player in shaping the battle against climate change.

https://www.rt.com/india/588915-india-global-climate-deal/