Britain has fallen behind India to become the world’s sixth largest economy, according to Bloomberg reports.
Long-term inflation and rising risks of recession has resulted in the UK slipping in the international rankings.
In India, conversely, the economy is forecast to grow by more than 7 per cent this year, with a rebound of the country’s stocks seeing their weighting rise to the second spot in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, trailing only China’s.
On an adjusted basis and using the dollar exchange rate on the last day of the relevant quarter, the size of the Indian economy in “nominal” cash terms in the quarter through March was $854.7 billion. On the same basis, UK was $816 billion.
The calculations were done using the IMF database and historic exchange rates on the Bloomberg terminal.
The UK is likely to have fallen further since. UK GDP grew just 1 per cent in cash terms in the second quarter and, after adjusting for inflation, shrank 0.1 per cent.
Sterling has also underperformed the dollar relative to the rupee, with the pound falling 8 per cent against the Indian currency this year.
The IMF’s own forecasts show India overtaking the UK in dollar terms on an annual basis this year, putting the Asian powerhouse behind just the US, China, Japan and Germany. A decade ago, India ranked 11th among the largest economies, while the UK was 5th.
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