Will India Grow Old Before it Gets Rich?

[Riaz Haq]

India's population has aged faster than expected while its economic growth has slowed over the last decade. This raises the obvious questions: Will India get old before it gets rich? Is India getting poorer relative to its peers in the emerging markets? 

India's Population Aging. Source: Semafor

As India's birth rate declines rapidly, the proportion of people age 60 and over is rising in the general population. This is particularly true of the southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, the expected demographic dividend from the youth bulge in the country has yet to materialize. High youth unemployment is threatening to cause serious social instability in the world's most populous country. It is also causing a massive brain drain.  

India's GDP Per Capita Compared to Emerging Markets Average. Source...

India is losing its best and brightest to the West, particularly to the United States, at an increasingly rapid pace. A 2023 study of the 1,000 top scorers in the 2010 entrance exams to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) — a network of prestigious institutions of higher learning based in 23 Indian cities — revealed the scale of the problem. Around 36% migrated abroad, and of the top 100 scorers, 62% left the country, according to a report in the science journal Nature.  Nearly two-thirds of those leaving India are highly educated, having received academic or vocational training. This is the highest for any country, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Annual Population Growth Rapidly Falling Across India. Source: Semafor

India has the lowest GDP per capita among the 5 BRICS nations. The country's GDP growth rate is much slower than the average for emerging markets. It means that India is becoming poorer relative to the rest of the developing world. 

GDP Per Capita Map 2024. Source: IMF

India's GDP Per Capita is Very Low. Source: BBC

The north-side geographic divide in India is growing. The southern five of India’s 28 states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana) contain 20% of the population and contribute 31% of the GDP, according to The Economist magazine. Among startups, 46% of tech “unicorns” are southerners, particularly from Bangalore. The five southern states provide 66% of the it-services industry’s exports. The latest craze is for “global capability centers”, where multinationals assemble their global auditors, lawyers, designers, architects and other professionals: 79% of these hubs are in the south.

Indian Parliament Seats Based on Current Population. Source: Nation...

There has always been a north-south divide in India in terms of population and wealth. The south has been wealthier and less populous than the north. But the political power is still concentrated in the poorer and more populous northern states. This situation serves Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP party well. But it also creates significant resentment in southern states. 

In his book "The Raisina Model", British Lord Meghand Desai says that India's breakup can not be ruled out. Specifically, he points to three issues that could lead to it:

1.  Cow protection squads are killing Muslims and jeopardizing their livelihoods.  The current agitation about beef eating and gau raksha is in the Hindi belt just an excuse for attacking Muslims blatantly. As most slaughterhouses in UP are Muslim-owned, owners and employees of these places are prime targets.

2. India has still not fashioned a narrative about its nationhood which can satisfy all. The two rival narratives—secular and Hindu nation—are both centered in the Hindi belt extending to Gujarat and Maharashtra at the most. This area comprises 51% of the total population and around 45% of the Muslims in India.

3. India has avoided equal treatment of unequal units. Representation in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) is proportional to population size. The larger states dominate both Houses of Parliament. It would be difficult for small states to object, much less initiate reform. In future, small states could unite to present their case for better treatment. 

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[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan’s Top Talent Is Leaving the Country in Record Numbers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-31/pakistan-s-brigh...

Economic hardship has pushed skilled workers to move abroad, hollowing out banks, hospitals and multinational companies.

One million skilled workers — doctors, engineers, accountants and managers, among others — left Pakistan over the past three years alone, according to a government tally. That makes Pakistan one of the top 10 countries for emigration.

Asad Ejaz Butt is one of Pakistan’s best and brightest. After completing graduate studies in Canada, the economist returned home with a drive to contribute to his home country and its development.

Yet prestigious jobs working under two finance ministers weren’t enough to pay the bills. Over the past few years, as Pakistan’s inflation outranked any other nation in Asia, Butt couldn’t afford basic necessities, including rent. So he left his highly coveted government job and moved back to North America — to buy time and complete another advanced degree.

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https://youtu.be/YAeOOpk0OEI?si=thP0nkD0AL5l-ZwU

A growing number of skilled workers are leaving Pakistan, seeking opportunities abroad as their country faces one of Asia’s highest inflation rates, rising food and energy prices and a devalued currency.

To address the dire economic situation, the government has implemented unpopular reforms, including raising corporate tax rates and utility prices. These measures are part of Pakistan’s latest $7 billion loan deal with the International Monetary Fund, aimed at averting national bankruptcy.

But the result of all this has been an increasing number of would-be taxpayers emigrating to wealthier nations. So what does that mean for the country’s economic and political prospects?

[Riaz Haq]

Weakness In India's Economy Is Showing In Quarterly Corporate Earnings - Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/india-market-buz...

It's raining earnings downgrades as economy slows

Read more at: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/markets/india-inc-faces-mounting-earning...

This is the highest proportion since early 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic upended economic activity for months. Jefferies now forecasts that the earnings of Nifty companies will grow at just 10% in the year ending March.

India Inc. Faces Mounting Earnings Downgrades As Growth Slowdown Weighs Jefferies has cut fiscal 2025 earnings estimates for over 60% of the 98 companies it covers which reported second quarter earnings.

Global brokerage firm Jefferies has cut fiscal 2025 earnings estimates for over 60% of the 98 companies it covers which reported second quarter earnings. This is so far the highest downgrade ratio since early 2020, Jefferies said in a note on Oct. 30. "Above normal rains and weak government spending has impacted earnings outcomes," Jefferies said. A clear trend should emerge in the December quarter

For the 98 September 2024 quarter results that Jefferies analysed from their coverage universe, earnings downgrades (63%) were more than earnings upgrades (32%). Meaningful earnings per share downgrades were seen in most cement, oil & lending financials, mid-caps, auto and consumer staples players, it said.

The rising downgrades come as a result of a slowing economy with companies facing severe pressure from weakening urban demand. In recent post-earnings commentaries, heads of these companies have rued the slowing consumption of essentials such as food and shampoo to cars and bikes. Contrary to the Reserve Bank of India's optimistic forecast, Nomura Global Markets Research believes that India's economy

"This is probably the worst earnings cycle that we have seen going into Diwali in a long, long time," according to Rahul Arora, chief executive officer at Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities "What is very evident is that the rural economy is in a mess." Hindustan Unilever Ltd. coming with 2–3% volume growth, a low number from two-wheeler manufacturers, and even certain consumer discretionary company

[Riaz Haq]

India ‘clearly has a problem’ finding new drivers for economic growth, JPMorgan’s Jahangir Aziz says

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/24/india-clearly-has-a-problem-finding...

India “clearly has a problem” figuring out new drivers for its economic growth even as its economy expands at a fast clip, JPMorgan’s Jahangir Aziz said, following the country’s union budget.

India’s chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said Monday that the economy is expected to grow at 6.5% to 7% in financial year 2025, lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s 7.2% growth forecast.


India “clearly has a problem” figuring out new drivers for its economic growth even as its economy expands at a fast pace, JPMorgan’s Jahangir Aziz said, following the country’s union budget.

“If you look at India over the last two years post the pandemic, recorded growth has been strong. But if you look at the drivers of growth, it’s essentially these two: Public infrastructure and services export,” Aziz, chief emerging markets economist at JPM, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.

The country’s finance minister on Tuesday said capital expenditure for fiscal year 2025 will be 11.11 trillion Indian rupees ($133.9 billion) — or 3.4% of GDP — backing India’s ambitions to enhance its physical and digital infrastructure as it strives to become a developed nation by 2047.

According to estimates by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India’s services exports will likely hit $30.3 billion in June, compared with $27.8 billion in the same month last year.

“Services export is sort of stabilizing at a high level, it isn’t growing as fast as it was a couple years back,” Aziz said, adding that the government should focus on increasing private investments and boosting consumption.

“It is going to be very difficult for India to keep sustaining the 6% to 7% growth rate just on public infrastructure and on services export … The question is, can India broaden its growth drivers to consumption, but more importantly private investment? We haven’t seen that happen in a long, long time.”

India’s chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said Monday that the economy is expected to grow at 6.5% to 7% in financial year 2025, lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s 7.2% growth forecast.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook, the country’s growth is predicted to decline to 6.5% in 2025.

Although India’s large youth population is steering the country toward becoming the world’s third largest consumer market by 2027, consumption is unlikely to increase if high unemployment stands in the way, warned Raghuram Rajan, professor at the University of Chicago Booth School and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

The country’s unemployment rate climbed to 9.2% in June, from 7% the month before, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.

“You’ve seen consumption growth relatively tepid over the last few quarters, and unless people feel more confident that they have jobs, that they are well paying jobs, you are going to see that be a drag on growth,” Rajan said.

He questioned the employment initiatives such as pledging to train 2 million young people over five years, and providing a month’s worth of wages of about 15,000 rupees ($179) to first-time employees entering the workforce, announced in Tuesday’s budget.

“Are they of the magnitude that India requires given the enormous concerns about joblessness?”

[Riaz Haq]

Foreign investors fear India’s stock market boom may be over

International investors pull out more than $10bn from Indian stocks as indices record largest fall since March 2020

https://www.ft.com/content/d7ba1339-5326-4265-a360-04574a9239c0



Foreign investors pulled more than $10bn out of Indian stocks in October, the biggest monthly exodus since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, on growing concerns that the market’s huge bull run may finally be coming to an end as the economy slows. India’s two main share indices last month posted their worst monthly losses since March 2020 while the rupee fell close to a record low against the US dollar, as international interest cools in what was one of the hottest global markets. Investors increasingly fear that Indian shares, which have more than tripled since March 2020, could now struggle in the face of weak corporate earnings, signs of an economic slowdown and moves by the central bank to curb exuberant retail lending.



“It’s a pretty classic cyclical economic downturn in India,” said Saurabh Mukherjea, chief investment officer at Marcellus Investment Managers in Mumbai. “The question is if it’s a few quarters or a more prolonged affair,” said Mukherjea. He has been buying defensive stocks in sectors such as information technology and pharmaceuticals, which he believes will perform in “times of uncertainty”. Investors have also sold down their positions to brace for volatility around the US elections and to free up money to chase the recent stimulus-driven rally in Chinese shares. Following October’s outflow, net inflows from foreign investors for this year have dropped to just $2bn, according to stock exchange data. Even as money was still coming in earlier this year, foreign ownership of India’s stock market dropped to a 12-year low amid an Indian retail investor frenzy for shares. A warning sign came in August with data showing that Indian GDP grew 6.7 per cent in the three months to June, its slowest rate in five quarters. India’s “growth glass looks half-empty”, said Nomura economists last month. After hitting a series of record highs this year, the Nifty 50 index of blue-chip Indian stocks fell 6.2 per cent in October. The Sensex meanwhile fell 5.8 per cent, its worst month since March 2020. Even so, the MSCI India trades at 24 times forward earnings, just ahead of the roughly 23 times for the US’s S&P 500 index.



Also driving stocks lower is a wide swath of Indian industry reporting sluggish earnings, with misses so far exceeding earnings beats, according to Goldman Sachs, whose analysts have lowered their rating on the country’s equities from “overweight” to “neutral”.





“We track the extent of downgrades on earnings. What we are seeing in India is fairly intense. Even [some] consumer staples are missing numbers,” said Sunil Tirumalai, chief emerging markets strategist at UBS. Data has indicated consumer confidence is slowing; Indian vehicle sales have dipped in recent months, while bellwethers such as Hindustan Unilever, the seller of Dove soap and Cornetto ice cream, had “muted” industry-wide demand growth, chief financial officer Ritesh Tiwari told analysts. An inflection point for the glut of Indian companies coming to market in 2024 came with the highly symbolic $3.3bn listing of Hyundai’s Indian business on local stock bourses in October. Asia’s largest float this year was poorly received by retail investors, who were put off by its elevated valuation and an industry-wide vehicle sales slowdown. Executives at Citigroup, one of Hyundai’s Indian bookrunners, nevertheless defended the listing and played down fears of a wider downturn. “A temporary softness of one season or two months is not necessarily determining what our view on the outlook is for 2025,” Rahul Saraf, head of India investment banking at Citi, told reporters last month. Other “large” clients are “very keen” to explore an Indian IPO, he added. “I think they’re actually encouraged with the listing of Hyundai [rather] than being discouraged.”

[Riaz Haq]

India's middle class tightens its belt, squeezed by food inflation

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-middle-class-tightens-it...

Urban consumption hits two-year low, index shows

Inflation at 14-month high; food inflation in double-digits

Middle class frustration impacts Modi's election performance

Fast-food chains report sales declines


CHENNAI/NEW DELHI, Nov 13 - India's city dwellers are cutting spending on everything from cookies to fast food as persistently high inflation squeezes middle class budgets, threatening the country's brisk economic growth.
Slowing urban spending over the past three to four months has not only hurt the earnings of largest consumer goods firms, it has raised questions about the structural nature of India's long-term economic success.

Since the end of the pandemic, India's economic growth has been driven in large part by urban consumption, however, that now seems to be changing.
"There is a top end – the people with money are spending like that is going out of style," Nestle India Chairman Suresh Narayanan said.

"There used to be a middle segment, which used to be the segment that most of us fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms used to operate in, which is the middle class of the country, that seems to be shrinking."

Nestle India, which makes Kit Kats and other well-known goods, reported its first quarterly revenue drop since the COVID-hit June quarter in 2020.
While there is no officially defined income bracket for Indian middle class households, they are broadly estimated to account for a third of India's 1.4 billion people.

They are considered a key demographic both economically and politically, with middle class frustration seen as a significant factor behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi's weaker election performance this year.

[Riaz Haq]

Yes, India's economy is slowing down:
GDP growth
India's GDP growth rate slowed to 6.7% in the April–June 2024 quarter, down from 7.8% in the previous quarter. This was the slowest expansion in more than a year.
Other indicators
Other indicators of a slowing economy include:
A 30% decrease in capital expenditure in August 2024
A 1.8% contraction in core sector output in August 2024
A fall in the Purchasing Managers' Index for manufacturing and services in September 2024
A 6.5% growth in Goods and Services Tax collections in September 2024
Global trends
India's growth is expected to slow due to broader global trends, such as sluggish growth in the West, slowing global trade, and supply chain disruptions.
Urban consumption
Urban consumption indicators have been softening, including a slump in passenger vehicle sales and moderation in airline passenger traffic.
Some say that India's medium-term prospects are still robust, with sectors like trade, agriculture, and artificial intelligence driving growth.

https://www.google.com/search?q=indian+economy+slowing&sca_esv=...

[Riaz Haq]

CNBC’s Inside India newsletter: India’s growing wealth divide

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/15/cnbcs-inside-india-newsletter-india...

India’s growing affluent population and their outsized influence on the nation’s growth story is becoming the envy of many major markets.

The nation’s ultra-wealthy population — or people with at least $30 million — rose to 13,263 people in 2023, a 6.1% jump from the year before, data from Knight Frank shows. This number is slated to surge 50.1% between 2023 and 2028, making it the fastest growth rate for UHNWIs in the world, the same report stated.

These individuals are subtly driving India’s economic progress through their consumption patterns and investment behaviors.

Beyond the hype and expectation of growth, however, is the challenge of widening economic inequality.

The top 1% of income earners in India accounted for an unprecedented 22.6% of the overall income generated in the country between 2022 and 2023, a study by the World Inequality Lab (WLI) revealed. India’s metric is one of the highest in the world — surpassing levels in the United States and emerging markets like Brazil and South Africa.

There has been significant fluctuations in the statistic over the last eight decades. The nation’s top earners previously held just over 20% in the 1930s when India was under British rule. That share dropped during World War II to just over 10% for the most part between the 1940s and 1960s before plunging to 6.1% in 1982. It subsequently edged up gradually to hit 15.1% at the turn of the century.

India’s income gap (which is the difference in wages earned between different demographic) comes alongside a worsening wealth divide too.

The top 1% of India’s wealthy controlled 40.1% of the nation’s wealth between 2022 and 2023, the same WLI study showed. This is a considerable jump from the 12.9% they held back in 1961 when the researchers began their analysis.

The rise in India’s income and wealth inequality is not a result of the poor getting poorer, Sumedha Dasgupta, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) flags.

Instead, the phenomenon comes as the “rich are getting much richer at a faster rate,” she told CNBC’s Inside India.

“India has over 300 billionaires, which is something that you would hardly consider possible for an emerging economy, [with] a strong growth rate, but also a track record of a very large population of poor people. So this has exacerbated the rich-poor divide,” she added.

India’s 3 household groups

A more pressing issue brought on by India’s wealth and income divide is the emergence of different categories of households with distinct standards of living.

Venture capital firm Blume Ventures categorizes Indian households into three groups based on their per capita income.

The first group, or India 1, as the firm calls it, captures the “consuming class.” Around 30 million households, or 120 million individuals, who have the disposable income to invest and purchase goods and services beyond necessities come under this category. They account for $800 billion or 60% of India’s total consumption.

The second group, or India 2, is made up of around 70 million households of relatively lower income from an “aspirant class” and are “heavy consumers and reluctant payers,” Blume Ventures noted in its Indus Valley Annual Report 2024. Individuals in this group include helpers and security guards.

The last group, or India 3, captures those who don’t “have the kind of income to be able to spend anything on discretionary goods,” the venture capital firm noted. These individuals have a per capita income of around $1,000 — similar to that in sub-Saharan Africa. Around 205 million households or a billion people fall into this group.

Meanwhile, research from non-governmental organization Oxfam shows that 63 million Indians are pushed into poverty annually because of health care costs. That translates to around two Indians becoming impoverished every second, solely on the basis of the cost of health care, the research said.

[Riaz Haq]

CNBC’s Inside India newsletter: India’s growing wealth divide

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/15/cnbcs-inside-india-newsletter-india...


In terms of wage growth, Oxfam notes that it would take a minimum wage worker in rural India 941 years to earn what a top executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.

Unequal education opportunities

The EIU’s Dasgupta attributes India’s vicious wealth and income gap cycle in large part to mismatched education opportunities.

“Widespread access to education is not something that is very easily accessible for a very large proportion of Indians. This is because of a significant reliance on government funded education, the quality of which has just been sub par and poor,” she noted.

Private schools — which is an option for children from households with a monthly income of around 30,000-50,000 Indian rupees ($355 to $592) — would typically offer a better quality of primary and secondary education.

Conversely, government schools — which are free or charge a nominal fee in the foundational years — can be plagued with issues such as “missing teachers or under qualified teachers, inadequate infrastructure and a generally lower quality of education imparted,” Dasgupta explained.

There is “no incentive for a parent in a rural area to put their child in the educational system for 13-14 years. Parents want their children to work and contribute to the household and are simply not sure of what kind of income that child will be able to provide later based on the education they received,” she argued.

Access to schooling — public or private — ensures that India’s children are educated and also have least one meal, something which they may otherwise not have. Poor access to foundational education impacts productivity, employability and even the standard of health — particularly among those in the lower income per capita tiers — in the long term.

India’s poorer residents typically seek employment in low-skilled roles like agriculture and construction or as laborers, and typically face difficulty getting employed in higher skilled roles in manufacturing or even services.

Going forward, Dasgupta’s suggestion is for more resources to be ploughed into improving primary educational standards as well as enrollment and completion rates.

Signs of a focus on education are already visible with the Department of School Education and Literacy being allocated 734.98 billion Indian rupees in the recent national budget. Albeit a mere 6.6% of the total budget allocation, this is the highest amount ever allocated to the department.

What else is needed?

Besides improving its education, experts have called for other measures such as more taxes on India’s super-rich and greater focus on creating job opportunities to improve the labor force participation.

So far, the country does not have a wealth tax but has other measures such as higher income tax rates for the wealthy, capital gains tax, and surcharges for high-income individuals. Responses from a recent survey by the Earth4All initiative and Global Commons Alliance indicated that 74% of those polled in India were in favor of a tax on the super-rich.

Still, a more pertinent remedy for India would be to foster more avenues for growth, by attracting investments from both domestic and private investors, Shumita Deveshwar, chief India economist at TS Lombard, suggests.

“India is the fast-growing economy relative to other emerging markets and is making global investors sit up and take notice but FDI [foreign direct investment] inflows slowed to a 5-year low in FY24,” she told CNBC’s Inside India.

While FDI flows were up 48% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 between April to June, the economist cautioned of the “risk that these flows can be lumpy and are not yet supported by a strong recovery in domestic private investment.”

[Riaz Haq]

In India, one of the world’s most polyglot countries, the government wants more than a billion people to embrace Hindi. One scholar thinks that would be a loss.

By Samanth Subramanian

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-spea...

Since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.) came to power, it has made the future of Indian languages even more uncertain. In addition to its well-known Hindu fanaticism, the B.J.P. wishes to foist Hindi on the nation, a synthetic marriage that would clothe India in a monolingual monoculture. Across northern and central India, roughly three hundred million people speak, as their first language, the standardized Hindi that the B.J.P. holds dear—but, this being India, that leaves more than a billion who don’t. Even so, the government tried to make Hindi a mandatory language in schools until fierce opposition forced a rollback. The country’s Department of Official Language, which promotes the use of Hindi, has had its budget nearly tripled in the past decade, to about fifteen million dollars. A parliamentary committee recently urged that Hindi be a prerequisite for government employment, raising the possibility that such jobs might become the preserve of people from the B.J.P.’s Hindi-speaking heartland. Three years ago, India’s Home Minister called Hindi the “foundation of our cultural consciousness and national unity”—a message that he put out in a tweet written only in Hindi.

In India, where language scaffolds culture and identity, this pressure affects daily life. On social media, people routinely bristle at encountering Hindi in their non-Hindi-speaking states—on bank documents, income-tax forms, railway signboards, cooking-gas cylinders, or the milestones on national highways. Two years ago, a man set himself on fire in Tamil Nadu to protest the imposition of Hindi. In Karnataka, the state where he lives, Devy sees a simmering resentment of Hindi-speaking arrivals from the north.

The B.J.P. believes that India can cohere only if its identity is fashioned around a single language. For Devy, India’s identity is, in fact, its polyglot nature. In ancient and medieval sources, he finds earnest embraces of this abundance: the Mahabharata as a treasury of tales from many languages; the Buddhist king Ashoka’s edicts etched in stone across the land in four scripts; the lingua francas of the Deccan sultanates. The coexistence of languages, he thinks, has long allowed Indians to “accept many gods, many worlds”—an indispensable trait for a country so sprawling and kaleidoscopic. Preserving languages, protecting them from being bullied out of existence, is thus a matter of national importance, Devy said. He designed the P.L.S.I. to insure “that the languages that were off the record are now on the record.”

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By the time (literary scholar Ganesh) Devy was born, Indian leaders had begun to regard language as an existential dilemma. This was a fresh, unstable country, already rent by strife between Hindus and Muslims; to mismanage the linguistic question would be to risk splintering India altogether. Mahatma Gandhi, fearing India wouldn’t hold without a national language, proposed that it be Hindustani, which encompasses both Hindi and the very similar Urdu of many Indian Muslims. (In the history of new nations, Gandhi’s concern is not an uncommon one.

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During his time in Vadodara, Devy had seen, up close, the rise of an ugly, intolerant Hindu fundamentalism. On the street one night, he encountered a Hindu mob hunting for Muslims to harm; he sent them in the wrong direction.