Inclusive growth: India slips to 62nd spot

Davos, January 22 

India was today ranked at 62nd place among emerging economies on an Inclusive Development Index, much below China’s 26th position and Pakistan’s 47th.

Norway remains the world’s most inclusive advanced economy while Lithuania again tops the list of emerging economies, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said while releasing the yearly index before the start of its annual meeting here, which is to be attended by several world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump.

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The index takes into account the “living standards, environmental sustainability and protection of future generations from further indebtedness”, the WEF said. It urged the leaders to urgently move to a new model of inclusive growth and development, saying reliance on GDP as a measure of economic achievement is fuelling short-termism and inequality.

India was ranked 60th among 79 developing economies last year, as against China’s 15th and Pakistan’s 52nd position. The 2018 index, which measures progress of 103 economies on three individual pillars -- growth and development; inclusion; and inter-generational equity -- has been divided into two parts. The first part covers 29 advanced economies and the second 74 emerging economies.

The index also classifies the countries into five sub-categories in terms of the five-year trend of their overall Inclusive Development Growth score — receding, slowly receding, stable, slowly advancing and advancing. 

Despite its low overall score, India is among the 10  emerging economies with ‘advancing’ trend. Among advanced economies, Norway, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Denmark are  in the top five.

Small European economies dominate the top of the index with Australia (9) the only non-European economy in the top 10. Of the G7 economies, Germany (12) ranks the highest  followed by Canada (17), France (18), the UK (21), the US (23), Japan (24) and Italy (27).

The top-five most inclusive emerging economies are Lithuania, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Latvia and Poland.

A survey released by international rights group Oxfam hours before the start of the Davos meet, showed the richest 1 per cent in India cornered 73 per cent of the wealth generated in the country last year — a worrying picture of rising inequality. Besides,  67 crore Indians comprising the poorest half saw their wealth rise by 1 per cent.