Recently the New York Times reported the following:
How India Became One of the World’s Biggest Economies
(1/2)
India has grown rapidly despite its slow
industrialization, and its economy is now nearly as big as Japan’s.
NYT - By Alex Travelli and Aaron Krolik. Alex Travelli
reported from New Delhi, and Aaron Krolik from Seoul.
Feb. 27, 2026
India, the world’s fastest-growing large economy for four
years in a row, released data on Friday showing that it expanded at a rate of
7.5 percent last year, driven in part by strength in manufacturing.
Many economists, and India’s government, had expected India to become the world’s fourth-largest economy in 2025, overtaking Japan in size. Instead, with the Indian rupee weak against the dollar and Japan’s yen relatively strong, India’s economy stayed a step behind when measured in dollar terms.
But in terms of growth, India far outperformed Japan, which grew only 1.1 percent in 2025. The three largest economies — the United States, China and Germany — all grew more slowly than India last year.
India became the world’s fifth-largest economy four years ago, pushing aside Britain, its former colonial ruler. The International Monetary Fund has projected that India will nudge past Japan in 2026.
The strong growth last year underscores India’s place as one
of the world’s most consequential centers of economic gravity, despite breaking
every rule about how countries are supposed to modernize. Its rise up the
league table of economies has given it geopolitical clout and drawn interest
from investors. Yet the shape of its progress is unique. With India’s economic
power growing even faster than its population — now more than 1.4 billion
people, larger than any other country’s — India is on a course all its own.
The country’s thousands of small businesses hire most of its workers, but an increasing share of growth has come from its biggest companies. Dynastic family firms play an outsize role at every scale, from conglomerates like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group to industry-specific companies.
Sanjiv Bajaj, a scion of a 100-year-old family business with roots in the automotive sector, has had a ringside view of India’s growth. Mr. Bajaj, 56, split off the Bajaj group’s financial services operation from Bajaj Auto in 2007. Bajaj Finserv started with $550 million under management and now controls $53 billion. Its own market value has grown 377 times over.
Much of the company’s success can be traced to India’s policies to modernize technology. In the past decade, the government has pushed biometric IDs and digital payments, pulling a majority of India’s adults into the banking system. India’s own digital payments system now processes 20 billion transactions a month. Most amounts are tiny, Mr. Bajaj said, but the sheer size of the country’s population means that even small shifts in behavior turn into tremendous moneymaking opportunities.
All of that data, Mr. Bajaj said, “allows us to look at every small shop owner and see his inflows and outflows every day.” His company can now make lending decisions at an enormous scale, bringing millions of Indians into the formal credit system, he said.
Among the world’s economies, the United States and China are way ahead in terms of size, ahead of Germany, Japan and India, all in a tight cluster, by about four to six times.
India has been holding tight to its position as the fastest-growing large economy since 2021. With annual growth of more than 6 or 7 percent, it doubles in size every decade, while Germany, Japan and most other rich countries struggle to hit yearly growth of 2 percent.
Germany and Japan have over decades become manufacturing powerhouses that have lifted their populations out of post-World War II poverty.
(to be continued)
印度如何成為世界最大經濟體之一（1/2）
許多經濟學家和印度政府曾預計，印度將在2025年超越日本，成為世界第四大經濟體。然而，由於印度盧比對美元疲軟，日圓相對強勢，以美元計價，印度經濟仍落後日本。
但就成長而言，印度遠超過日本，日本2025年僅成長了1.1%。三大經濟體 - 美國、中國和德國 - 去年的成長速度都低於印度。
四年前，印度超越其前殖民統治者英國，成為世界第五大經濟體。國際貨幣基金組織預測，印度將在2026年超越日本。
儘管印度打破了各國現代化進程的常規，但其去年的強勁成長凸顯了印度作為全球最具影響力的經濟中心之一的地位。印度在全球經濟排名中的崛起賦予了其地緣政治影響力，並吸引了投資者的注意。然而，印度的發展軌跡卻獨樹一格。印度的經濟實力成長速度甚至超過了其人口成長速度 - 目前印度人口已超過14億，超過其他國家 - 印度正走著一條與眾不同的道路。
印度數以千計的小企業僱用了大部分勞動力，但越來越多的成長卻來自其最大的公司。世代家族企業從Mukesh Ambani的信實集團 (Reliance Group) 到行業特定型公司，各個層級的都扮演著舉足輕重的角色。
Sanjiv Bajaj，一位擁有百年歷史的汽車行業家族企業的繼承人，親眼見證了印度的經濟成長。現年56歲的Bajaj先生於2007年將Bajaj集團的金融服務業務從Bajaj Auto公司剝離。Bajaj金融服務公司(Bajaj Finserv) 最初管理的資產為5.5億美元，如今已控制著530億美元的資產。其市值成長了377倍。
該公司的巨大成功很大程度上要歸功於印度推行的技術現代化政策。過去十年，印度政府大力推廣生物辨識身分和電子支付，使大多數印度成年人納入了銀行體系。印度的電子支付系統目前每月處理200億筆交易。Bajaj先生表示，雖然大多數交易金額都很小，但印度龐大的人口基數意味著，即使是微小的行為變化也能轉化為巨大的獲利機會。
Bajaj先生說，所有這些數據「讓我們能夠了解每一位小商戶每天的資金流入和流出」。他表示，他的公司現在可以大規模做出貸款決策，將數百萬印度人納入正規信貸體系。
在全球經濟體中，美國和中國的規模遙遙領先，遠超德國、日本和印度這三個緊密相連的一組國家，大約是它們的四到六倍。
自2021年以來，印度一直保持著全球成長最快的大型經濟體的地位。其年增率超過6%或7%，每十年經濟規模翻一番，而德國、日本和大多數其他富裕國家卻難以達到2%的年增長率。
德國和日本經過數十年的發展，已成為製造業強國，使兩國人民擺脫了二戰後的貧困。
（待續）
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