India now classified as ‘lower-middle income’ country -Governance Now

India now classified as ‘lower-middle income’ country

World Bank changes classification of economies in the recent World Development Indicators 2016 report

GN Bureau | May 31, 2016

#world development indicator #SDG’s #economies #UN #World Bank

For years, countries have been universally distinguished on economic nomenclatures of 'developed' and 'developing'. This classification was done on the basis of their prosperity and standard of living.

But in the recently published report on World Development Indicators 2016 by the World Bank, there is a change in the description of economies.

Motivated by the universal agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), the recent edition introduces a change in the way that global and regional aggregates are presented in tables and figures.

According to the report, unless otherwise noted, there is no longer a distinction between developing countries (defined in previous editions as low- and middle-income countries) and developed countries (defined in previous editions as high-income countries).

And India - which till now was written under 'developing' countries, will now be called 'lower-middle income country/South Asia'.

The regional groupings are based on geographical coverage rather than a subset of countries that were previously referred to as developing. Two implications of this change are that a new aggregate for North America has been included in tables, and aggregates for Europe and Central Asia include countries of the European Union.

For instance, Mexico, China and Brazil are 'upper-middle income'; while India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are 'lower-middle income'. So far, all were 'developing countries'.

Some pointers from the report on India are:

Many countries have made dramatic progress in reducing extreme poverty, though the global totals tend to be dominated by reductions in the two largest countries, China and India. In South Asia it fell from 51 percent to 19 percent.
Manufacturing value added as a share of GDP captures the role of manufacturing in an economy. Worldwide, the share declined from 19 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 2013. In South Asia the share has remained fairly constant since 1990; it was about 17 percent in 2014. Between 1990 and 2014 the share increased slightly, from 16 percent to 17 percent, in India.
India languishes on world indicators like labour force participation rate, electricity generation and access to improved sanitation facilities. However, there is an improvement in certain aspects, such as under-five mortality rate and maternal deaths.
Time required to start a business in India was 29 days in June 2015 against the global average of 20 days.

In 2015, only 40% of Indians had access to improved sanitation facilities, against the world average of 68%.
For India, international remittances totaled $70 billion in 2014, or 3.4 percent of GNI, only marginally less than the net inflows of debt and foreign direct investment combined.

In 2014 more than 680 million people were using the Internet in China, followed by 282 million in the United States and 228 million in India. But the Internet penetration rate shows disparity — 49 percent in China, 87 percent in the United States, and 18 percent in India.

The World Bank decision (to change the way the countries are classified) may lead the United Nations to follow the same. UN has no formal definition of developing countries, but still uses the term for monitoring purposes and considers 159 countries as developing.

Comments

Other News

SAIL to leverage domestic growth potential

Steel authority of India (SAIL) chairman PK Singh expressed confidence on improving the performance of the Maharatna PSU in the current fiscal because of a host of initiatives in almost every area of operations. During 45th annual general meeting of the company, Singh said the world steel as

TRIFED to scale up marketing of tribal products

Ministry of tribal affairs’ PSU— tribal cooperative marketing development federation of India limited (TRIFED) is contemplating to scale up marketing of tribal products through increase at its retail outlets throughout the country. TRIFED plans to scale up the retail marketing ac

Facebook and post-truth

It is not very often that Facebook advertises in newspapers. Last time it did was a year ago when it was promoting `free basics`— a limited internet service provided for free to subscribers of partnering telecom service providers. The internet platform’s reach is unparalleled vis-a-vis to tradi

IOCL pays VAT of Rs 2,935 cr to Odisha

In the resolution of the issue of VAT deferment for Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOCL) Paradip refinery in Odisha, IOCL has made VAT payment of Rs 2,935 crore to Odisha government. The refinery had commenced commercial operations in November 2015. The recent meeting between Odisha Chief M

Muddy makeover of the Taj

Patch by patch, the lucent dome of the Taj Mahal is being plastered with a mixture of Fuller’s earth. It’s a treatment other parts of the monument of love – minarets, walls and pathways – have received over the years. These mud packs, of two millimetre thickness, are believed to tak

NALCO aims at making country country self-reliant in strategic minerals

In its bid to make the country self-reliant in the areas of 12 strategic minerals that are either not available in India or not available adequately, National Aluminium Company (NALCO), HCL and Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL), the CPSEs of ministry of mines have inked an agreement.

Video

Current Issue

Opinion

Twitter

Tweets by @governancenow