Global Economic Power List: India enters top 5

The Indian government is the fifth most powerful in the world in terms of its ability to project the economy in the global sphere,as per a new ranking of 112 governments released as part of the Economic Survey 2010-11.

The Indian government is the fifth most powerful in the world in terms of its ability to project the economy in the global sphere,as per a new ranking of 112 governments released as part of the Economic Survey 2010-11.

As per the Index of Government Economic Power (IGEP),Indias economic power has increased substantially in the nine year period. It moved to the fifth spot in 2009 from a ranking of 10 in 2000. According to the IGEP 2009,the US was at the top of the list,followed by China,Japan,Germany,India,Russia,Brazil,France,Italy and the UK.

The index aims to assess a governments performers on the globe in terms of its ability to raise resources,credit-worthiness and credibility in international financial markets and determine its importance in multilateral fora based on four variables government revenues,foreign currency reserves,export of goods and services and human capital.

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There are rankings of individuals and nations. But governments are a separate entity from nations and individuals and this index will give an idea of how much say they should have globally, finance ministrys chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu and the Surveys chief author said. The finance ministry will soon publish a detailed paper on the index and its implications.

The Survey has pointed out that Indias has registered one of the most dramatic rises in ranks on the index. Among the large economies,China and India also demonstrate remarkable robustness by not having lower index values in 2009 unlike all the other countries occupying the top 10 positions in 2000, it said.

The ranking comes at a time when India has managed to shrug off the impact of the global financial crisis and has returned to a high growth trajectory of over 8.5 per cent. The economy is expected to expand at 8.6 per cent in 2010-11 and is likely to touch 9 per cent GDP growth in the next fiscal.

The Survey also noted a strong positive correlation between the growth in economic power as a percentage change in index and the change in GDP across the post crisis period. This indicates a link between growth in economic power as measured by the index and the ability to recover from the crisis, it said.