"In 2047, India will become a developed country!"
As soon as Modi's bold remarks came out, they immediately caused an uproar in public opinion. Immediately afterwards, the well-known British media "The Economist" mercilessly criticized: India's GDP data is seriously flooded, and the economic growth rate is suspected of fraud!
Regarding Modi's "dream of a developed country", the comments of the British media are undoubtedly a slap in the face. This slap in the face, how can Modi really be embarrassed?
Counterfeiting and whitewashing prosperity can hardly hide the backward reality
In fact, The Economist's questioning of India's GDP data is not unfounded.
The article points out that according to statistical rules, there is a serious inflated valuation of India's manufacturing growth rate, which leads to the real GDP growth rate also appearing.
This approach seems to be aimed at stabilizing public support, but it has brought hidden dangers to the country's long-term development. Because anyone who goes deep into India, especially those who build factories there, will find that the picture described by the data is far from the reality.
India, for example, accounts for less than 2% of the world's industrial exports; At present, the country does not have high-end industries such as electric vehicles, chips, large aircraft, and 5G equipment; Even the railroad tracks used are more than 100 years old.
In the face of such a backward industrial situation, foreign investors will naturally question the real purpose of Modi's repeated revisions to economic data. After all, working with a country that lacks integrity and credibility is too risky, and the consequences can be a loss of money.
This concern has been buried in people's minds as early as when Modi opened the water injection of GDP data through "incentive policies".
Economist: India is not up to the standards of developed countries
Not only that, experts and scholars are also cautious or even negative about Modi's rhetoric of "achieving the goal of developed countries by 2047".
For example, one economist bluntly said that India has no chance of becoming a truly developed country, and Modi should take care of it as soon as possible.
The scholar pointed out that as an agricultural country with a very late start of industrialization, India can only start from the lowest end of the manufacturing industry, one step at a time. Even at this rate, it took more than 40 years for China to become the world's second largest economy.
And India's desire to directly join the ranks of developed countries in less than 20 years is undoubtedly playing an international joke. At present, it can undertake nothing more than high-polluting and high-energy consumption industries such as ship repair, papermaking, and garbage recycling.
Not to mention the establishment of a system-wide industrial chain, India does not even have the conditions to build an automated digital production line.
In fact, under the tide of global industrial transformation and upgrading, the advantage of labor cost that used to be India no longer exists. Any industry that can be replaced by robots will inevitably be withdrawn from India.
Affected by this, India's low-end manufacturing industry will be reduced in the future. Under such circumstances, even if India does its best, it will not escape the fate of the average industrialized country in the end.
Flickering and bluffing won't help
In the face of the doubts of advanced countries and the warnings of experts, we have to say bluntly: simply revising the GDP data and bluffing the world will not help India.
The practice of "GDP moisture" has once again exposed India's ignorance and arrogance about the country's actual level of development. Needless to say, this is tantamount to covering up your ears and stealing the bell, and it cannot solve the current dilemma of lagging industrialization.
Not long ago, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil and many other emerging economies were severely affected by the subprime mortgage crisis under the confusion of inflated GDP data.
Now that India does not know how to learn from its lessons, it has unrealistically set its sights on the unattainable blueprint of "developed countries", and its inner anxiety and inferiority complex may be able to find temporary comfort, but it is not an easy task to develop. Blindly whitewashing peace and self-absorption will only make India more and more backward and marginalized in the global industrial competition.
Facts speak louder than words, and while falsifying GDP figures and fooling outsiders can get temporary attention, bluffs aside, India should focus on advancing structural reforms, improving its education system, and producing more high-quality talent for manufacturing.
What is more important is to learn from China's successful experience and carry out thorough innovation in all aspects. Using the power of the system to inject real impetus into development is the only way to move towards prosperity and strength.
Only in this way will India be able to truly realize its dream of becoming an industrial power in the future, convincing the world with concrete development achievements, rather than merely revising data and bluffing.