Advertisement
Opinion | Will India’s economy continue to benefit from China’s own goals?
- Wall Street is talking up India’s emergence as a key engine of global economic growth, amid high hopes for Modi’s third term
- On Xi’s watch, China’s self-inflicted wounds from “zero Covid” chaos to the tech crackdown have only added to India’s appeal
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
3
The China-versus-India debate of the past decade always seemed rather fanciful as Asia’s biggest economy boomed and hoovered up jobs and investment from every direction.
Advertisement
As 2024 unfolds, though, some of the globe’s top CEOs and investors rushing India’s way are entertaining the five most dangerous words in economics: things are different this time.
Apple is scaling up iPhone production in India’s youthful market of 1.4 billion people. Boeing is taking record orders. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is arguing that India has “more promise than any large country in the world”.
Consider, too, the reports that Wall Street is snubbing China for India in a historic shift. In January, India briefly overtook Hong Kong as the world’s fourth-largest equity market, the culmination of a US$6 trillion Chinese stock rout that began in 2021. Morgan Stanley predicts Mumbai will be the third-biggest equity bourse by 2030.
What makes such optimism different this time is a dynamic that Chinese President Xi Jinping can’t easily explain away: India’s rapid emergence as a key engine of global economic growth, as global investors bet that a third term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prove more successful than Xi’s.
Advertisement
This is economic fighting talk, of course. And caveats abound – big ones.
Advertisement