Thread by @GorwayGlobal

Let me do a proper thread that flows nicely
Re: Claims made by Mr Bagla, boss of Invest india at a Treasury Leadership Forum 2023 and shared by several people with Wow! and great!
I did a fact check. here goes. (link to his speech at the end)

1. Mr. Bagla is being disingenuous.
About GDP he says
1st Trn took 67 years
2nd Trn took 8
3rd Trn took 5 years.
So he must be starting at 1943.
I dont have data going that far back but we have this from World Bank
1960(GDP = 37 billion)
to
2021 (GDP 3 trillion)

Now here's the point. In 1960 Our population was 445 million. in 2021 it was about 1.4 billion. That is a 3.14 x increase. So the bulk of our GDP growth was due not to rising productivity but due to an expanding and growing labour force.
More people = higher total GDP. Duh!

Mr Bagla is careful not to relate anything top the underlying ppopulation see the GDP perc apita growth in the same chart above. Nothing remarkable. To contrast look at the same charts for the World. Notice the same shape? Duh!!

There's more. To go from 37 billion to just over 3 trillion in 61 odd years implies a CAGR of 7.5%. At that rate, and starting at 0.035 trillion it would PURELY MATHEMATICALLY take
46 years to hit 1 Trn, then another
9 years to hit 2 trillion, and then
5 years to hit 3 trillion

The guys in charge in the last 5 years can quite easily say, "Oh Look we added a while trillion in just 5 years, the previous lot took 8 and the ones before that tool 46". #Bollocks. That's just high school algebra that your presenting as magic.

That is basic exponential growth. note how the gap between each successive trillion declines exponentially even as the net arithmetic addition to the GDP (1 extra trillion) remains static.
Mr Bagla is taking credit for the magic of compound growth.

At 6:42 in the video he makes the claim that all this growth has happened from Bottom-up. It has been inclusive growth he says on the basis that it has been seen in all 31 states, not just in the 6 metros. This is specious argument.

All 32 states yes of course, but bottom -up? All sections of society have been included? No one left behind?
Come on! that has to be the most unprecedented disingenuous statement ever. India's inequalities have WIDENED, manifestly so!!

Even the Prime Minister says that 80 crore Indians depend on state handouts of food grains - food grains not necessarily a quality wholesome diet, just food grains. Rice, wheat, millets. How can that be described as a bottom up nirvana of some economic growth story? How??

Watch the video here. These are serious business people and Invest India employs clever people. Surely they know better than to present exponential growth as some kind of magical achievement.

Then he talks of FDI. Since 1947 "I received abt 950 Billion dollars", he says (The "I" meaning India, Ha!). "Of that USD 532 Bn came in the last 90 months", i.e since 2014). I could not independently verify this figure. I looked at
macrotrends.net/countries/IND/…

Why did he choose 90 months as the time frame, Why not last 10 years (=120 months) or even 5years (=60 months) why 90 months? BECAUSE that starts with 2014!!! get the drift. Mr Bagla was overtly selling not India as a destination for investors but the present Regime!!

Any way what do The figures show
- between 2014 and 2021 (inc) FDI into India was 361 USD
- between 2004 and 201- it was 255 Bn USD
How do they define FDI?
"Foreign direct investment refers to direct investment equity flows in the reporting economy. ..contd

"It is the sum of equity capital, reinvestment of earnings, and other capital. Direct investment is a category of cross-border investment associated with a resident in one economy having control or a significant degree of influence on the management"... contd"

"of an enterprise that is resident in another economy. Ownership of 10 percent or more of the ordinary shares of voting stock is the criterion for determining the existence of a direct investment relationship"

The gap between 361 Bn USD and the 532 that Mr Bagla claimed is 191 Bn that would have had to come in in 2022 to make his claim accurate! India DID NOT receive 191 Bn USD in 2022 to today.

Instead of making an altogether over-inflated pitch for the Modi-Govt's claimed economic achievements, Invest India should be adding its voice to cleaning up securities market regulation in India.
theguardian.com/business/2023/…