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Speaker 1: It's just or for a week until india voters go

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Speaker 1: to the polls in the country's general election, but it

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Speaker 1: will be far from a quick process. The world's most

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Speaker 1: populars democracy votes in seven phases over forty four days.

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Speaker 1: Rushier Sharma, Rockefeller International Chairman, spoke with Wall Street Week

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Speaker 1: host David Weston yesterday about India's economic rise and what

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Speaker 1: to expect from the upcoming election.

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Speaker 2: If you look at India's economic progress since it got

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Speaker 2: independence in nineteen forty seven, right up until the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 2: India was a big laggard economy that its rankings in

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Speaker 2: both per capita income terms, in both its in terms

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Speaker 2: of its GDP size kept on falling for the entire period.

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Speaker 2: The turning point as far as India's economic progress was concerned,

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Speaker 2: I think was really the nineteen nineties when you had

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Speaker 2: the major burst of economic reforms that took place. When

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Speaker 2: the Indian economy me nearly went bankrupt, it had to

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Speaker 2: go to the IMF again and get a big rescue program.

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Speaker 2: That's really what began India's economic turnaround and that's what

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Speaker 2: led to India's rise.

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Speaker 3: And what we've seen over the past few years is.

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Speaker 2: A continuing momentum of that rise, which began in the

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Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties, so.

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Speaker 4: That began before Prime Minister Moti It came to office.

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Speaker 4: At the same time it has continued. How much is

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Speaker 4: he getting credit today in India for that as he

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Speaker 4: looks toward these elections.

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Speaker 2: But he's getting lots of credit for that, and I

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Speaker 2: think there are two or three reasons for it. One

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Speaker 2: is the fact that it's reached a sort of critical mass,

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Speaker 2: which is that when India was rising in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: nineties or in the.

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Speaker 3: Two thousands, the base was much smaller.

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Speaker 2: It's still in per capita income terms of relatively small base.

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Speaker 2: But now that India has become the world's fifth largest economy,

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Speaker 2: that just tends to have a much.

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Speaker 3: Greater effect in terms of his direct credit.

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Speaker 2: I think that the one thing which is possibly underestimated

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Speaker 2: is that how non inflationary this growth has been over

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Speaker 2: the last few years. That if you look at the

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Speaker 2: previous growth spurts that India had, particularly in the preceding

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Speaker 2: Congress government, one of the big problems was that it

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Speaker 2: also led to a big surge in inflation. This time

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Speaker 2: inflation has been relatively low, and that is a big

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Speaker 2: plus because in politics around the world, economic growth may

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Speaker 2: or may not matter, but inflation matters. Nothing kills the

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Speaker 2: prospects of incumbents as much as rising prices, and the

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Speaker 2: fact that inflation has been relatively under control is I

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Speaker 2: think one of those underappreciated factors because we, as economic

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Speaker 2: commentators or even political commentators, focus so much on just

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Speaker 2: the headline GDP growth numbers.

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Speaker 3: So the fact that you have very low inflation or

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Speaker 3: relatively low inflation, I think has been a big positive.

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Speaker 2: The other couple of things which are working in his

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Speaker 2: favor is that this growth spurt has happened at a

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Speaker 2: time when so many other emerging markets, including China, have

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Speaker 2: been sputtering, which.

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Speaker 5: I think who sure takes us to an ultimate question,

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Speaker 5: at least for Wall Street Week, which is is it

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Speaker 5: a good investment? In the past, you said India tends

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Speaker 5: to disappoint both the optimisty and the pessimist sooner or later.

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Speaker 4: It sounds to me from.

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Speaker 5: What you said that Modi is a pretty good investment,

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Speaker 5: but it's not as clear that India is once we

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Speaker 5: move past mode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, at least for now in terms of the economic momentum,

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Speaker 2: is quite strong. So I would know whether I said

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Speaker 2: that India has been a very good investment ever since

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Speaker 2: I began began my career. So I think that India

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Speaker 2: in general is a country that tends to move along.

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Speaker 3: It's like two steps forward, one step back, maybe one

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Speaker 3: and a half steps back.

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Speaker 2: At times under MODI it's been less back and you've

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Speaker 2: got economic progress. But the I'll only sort of, you know,

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Speaker 2: say two things to summarize my view here. One that yes,

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Speaker 2: India does appear to have a lot of great momentum

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Speaker 2: for now. But the second thing I will caution any

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Speaker 2: emerging market investor is that don't put all your eggs

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Speaker 2: in one basket, because remember four or five years ago,

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Speaker 2: everyone only wanted to speak about China as the ultimate

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Speaker 2: emerging market, and China sucked the energy out of so

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Speaker 2: many other investment opportunities because it was seen as the only.

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Speaker 3: Really big winning bet and emerging markets.

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Speaker 2: Look how that turned out, or at least how the

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Speaker 2: sentiment turned on that.

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Speaker 1: And that was Ruth cher Sharma, Rockefeller International Chairman, and

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Speaker 1: of course Wall Street week House, David Weston