London School of Economics Professor Emeritus Lord Meghnad Desai, on Monday, said Indian economy offered the advantage of flexiblity, sustainablity and durability, while describing China as strong but brittle. India, was like a mud pie which changes shape but cannot be destroyed.
Delivering a lecture here, Lord Desai noted that global equations would have to be re-written in view of the new found realities— the rapid growth of India and China.
China will crash
Observing that China was firmly on the path of capitalistic growth, he however, opined that capitalism develops in crisis but crashes when things are smooth warning that China will somewhere crash, but was difficult to state when this could happen. India, Lord Desai said, would soon get into the league of double-digit growth rate and will be able to sustain it for at least for five years.
In this regard, he said, both the United States and the European Union would be compelled to redraw the world’s economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, for several reasons, but most of all because of the emergence of China and India as giant and the fastest growing economies.
Speaking on “Emergence of India and China as Major Economic Powers,” he said India was using its capital more efficiently than China, Lord Desai, however, did not endorse the view that India would be able to reap the benefits by way of a demographic dividend, despite India’s bulge of youth population.