India 2025: the Economic Prospects. The "Great Transformation" of the Indian Economy

On 12 October 2007, the “India 2025” Conference was held in Paris. It was organized by the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale and the Asia 21 group (Futuribles International). Among the questions tackled were geopolitical considerations, some of which have already been the subject of articles in Futuribles (February and March 2008), and socio-economic aspects, which are covered more specifically in this issue. Jean-Joseph Boillot, the chief scientific adviser to the conference, gave a paper on the economic development of India to 2025, presenting the various projections and possible future scenarios for India as an economic power. This article reproduces the main elements of that contribution, demonstrating that the country is on the eve of its “Great Transformation”. Boillot begins by analysing the development of India’s GDP up to the year 2025, together with the component parts of that development (labour, capital, productivity), basing himself on a comparison of the main recent predictions. These suggest an economic growth figure of 4.5%-8.5% per annum between now and 2020/2025. He goes on to unpack these results, stressing a number of perspectival effects and micro/macro confusions, before examining the “Great Transformation” in detail. In this way, he shows that even if only part of the country – the “modern India” that is part of the globalized economy – participates in the national take-off, this could have a significant impact on the global economy.