GDP

India crosses France in GDP

Financial Independence, Uncategorized

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

A headline which caught my eye today and a cause for celebration for India and people of Indian origin was this report from the World Economic Forum site.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/the-80-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart

The chart on this link gives such a concise view of how the break-up of the $80Trillion world economy looks like.

While US is still the largest economy at $19 trillion, China at $12 trillion, is closing in quite fast and is one of the reasons for the spat between US and China.

What needs to be understood that China has a huge population and even a small change in per capita can change the numbers for China dramatically.

Which brings me to India.  In one of my posts almost 6-7 months back I had written how the Indian economy can grow dramatically because of the things the government of India is doing in terms of Direct Benefits Transfer and for doubling of farm wages.  With India’s large and growing young population even a $100 increase in per person income, from $1700/ person, can cause us to cross Germany, Japan etc. in a matter of years.

One of the BigFive consultants had put out a report of countries in terms of their share of the economy in 2050.  And the top 3 economies had India in it. While we have only $2.6 trillion portion of the global economy we are still the fastest growing large economy.

Which brings me to the crux of this post….

While Warren Buffet is betting on the USA and I am not negating him…. I also do have some indirect exposure to the US market…..

I would think if you really want to grow fast, you need to invest in an economy which has the world’s largest democracy.  Irrespective of which government comes to power, the economy moves on……there might be some slow downs but India has both the brain power and the manpower to surge ahead.   Being a stable democracy there is a rule of law.  So companies do get stuck in legal hassles but things do get resolved

By 2030 we would have the youngest population in the world. That will mean the amount of consumption that can take place in this country will be unsurpassed.  With both men and women entering the workplace either directly or indirectly, the need for workplaces will grow and it will put pressure on our existing infrastructure.  Which means that the government will have to be investing in setting up new cities.  The Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor – being built with Japanese collaboration – is going to sprout more than 10 completely new living and industrial areas.

To transport the population you will need to have airports, roads,  airlines.  To treat such a large population you will need hospitals, medicines etc.  There is no field where growth will not take place at amazing rates.

If you can take ownership of businesses via mutual funds or direct equity investments invest in India.  The growth is just about to begin and if you buy into companies at this time you can ride this growth.  If you want your wealth to grow faster than anywhere else in the world put your money in India.

To your financial independence.

Carpe Diem

How women in India can change the destiny of the country

Financial Independence, Uncategorized

Last few days I have had a writer’s block .  Since my last blog, last weekend, I had been thinking on what should be my next topic but it just wasn’t getting structured

And then today I was listening to the podcast at the Tim Ferriss( tim.blog .)  He was interviewing the author Daniel Pink.

There were many Aha moments…but this post is not about that podcast.During the interview Daniel mentioned that one of his professors once told him that sometimes you just need to start writing and things will get figured out.

That suddenly hit a chord with me.  So here we go….

I was reading the Entrepreneur magazine’s India edition and here I saw couple of very interesting facts.  One of them was an article by Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus. He is the man behind the concept of micro finance which has empowered so many women .

One of the things he mentioned in the article is that if illiterate and poor women can transform themselves into entrepreneurs imagine what would happen if millions of high school and University graduates are empowered.

This got me thinking. If we discount for about 30% of India’s population to be children and old people, then out of the remaining 1 billion people you have 50% of them as women. What would happen if these 50% women came into the workforce- either as entrepreneurs or as workers, what would happen to the GDP of our country.  About 400-500million more people in the workforce, which is expected to be the youngest workforce by 2030.

Last year I was in Canada during their 150 year celebrations and I realised that its GDP is close to two and a half trillion dollars, while India’s GDP is also close to 2.5 trillion dollars. However Canada’s population is less than the population of one city in India -Delhi NCR, about 3 crores (30million). India’s population is more than 125 crores(more than 1.25 billion).

In the same issue of the Entrepreneur there is another report which says that if women’s participation in the Indian economy goes up the country’s GDP is likely to go up by 60% that is an amazing figure

If only our women believe in themselves and if we can give them a supporting hand there is massive prosperity which can be created in this country.  Right now for a lot of families in India, buying 3 meals is the biggest outgo of money.  Once each family has multiple earners and expenses on food become a minor part of the spend, then families will educate their kids, they will take better care of them.  and people will spend more on non-food items.  These are exciting times if we take our destiny in our own hands.

Capre Diem!!!