NEW DELHI -- Has China really achieved double-digit growth rates in the past two decades? And is India really lagging behind? Close scrutiny reveals that India's growth rate may actually have been higher.
China is said to have moved to a double-digit trajectory beginning in the early 1980s. The size of the economy at that time as well as at present are both known from World Development Reports published regularly by the World Bank. A simple calculation can tell us the average growth rate in the period. This growth rate is much lower than the double-digit levels claimed.
China's gross domestic product was $264 billion in 1981 according to WDR 1983. By 1999, it had increased to $991 billion, according to the WDR 2000/01 -- the latest report available. The compound annual growth rate works out to 7.6 percent. The claim of an average 10.1 percent growth rate in the '80s and 10.7 percent in the '90s made in these reports is, therefore, simply incorrect.