The Lancet paper projected India as the fourth largest economy in 2030, behind the US, China, and Japan

India’s economy is headed towards becoming the third largest in the world by 2050, behind that of only China and the US, a paper published in medical journal Lancet has projected.

According to a report by LiveMint, the study used data on the working age population of countries to work out their total GDP and said India would retain the third position even in 2100.

India is currently the fifth largest economy in the world after the United States, China, Japan, and Germany; it is closely followed by France and the UK.

The country was the world’s seventh largest economy in 2017, the year that has been used as the base in the Lancet paper that projected India as the fourth largest economy in 2030, behind the US, China, and Japan.

Pointing out that India had similar expectations, the LiveMint report quoted NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar saying earlier this year that India should aspire to become the world’s third largest economy by 2047.

According to a study by Japan Centre for Economic Research in December last year, just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, India would surpass Japan to become the world’s third largest economy by 2029.

The report, however, pointed out that current estimates were less optimistic than earlier projections in an apparent reflection of the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.