Challenges and Opportunities in a Trillion Dollar Economy

The Indian economy reached the trillion US dollar GDP milestone in 2007 and joined other countries of the trillion dollar club, namely, the US, UK, Japan, Germany, China, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Russia. In fact, over the period 1960 to the late 1980s, India’s GDP in US dollar terms doubled every nine years, on an average. Since then, the period for doubling has declined to around 5 years, coinciding with the initiation of wide-ranging structural reforms. With India’s GDP at current market prices during 2010-11 already placed at around US dollar 1.7 trillion, it is expected that the Indian economy would cross the US dollar 3.4 trillion mark by 2015-16, that is, well within the span of the ensuing (Twelfth) Five Year Plan. Therefore, policy makers and business leaders, should be thinking about exploiting the opportunities and prepare for the challenges of managing a multi-trillion dollar (and not a one trillion dollar) economy. [Address at ASSOCHAM’s National Banking Conclave, New Delhi]. URL:[http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Speeches/PDFs/TD170611FL.pdf].