India is not the fourth-largest or a $4-trillion economy yet; NITI Aayog CEO’s claim citing IMF data misleading – Alt News

“We are the fourth-largest economy as I speak. We are a $4 trillion economy, and this is not my data—it’s IMF data,” Niti Aayog’s chief executive officer BVR Subrahmanyam said during a press briefing on May 24, 2025.

He was addressing reporters after the 10th governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog, a government think tank. The theme for this meeting, Subrahmanyam said, was ‘Viksit Rajya for Viksit Bharat’ which meant states must present their own growth visions in order for India to be a developed economy.

“It is only US, China, Germany, which are larger than India and if we stick to what is being planned and what is being thought through, in 2.5-3 years, we will be the third largest economy,” he added.

Subrahmanyam’s statements created a wave of euphoria. On May 27, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the achievement, emphasising how India moved from being the 11th-ranked economy to the 4th-ranked economy during his tenure.

#WATCH | Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says “On 26th May 2014, I took the oath as the Prime Minister for the first time. At that time, India’s economy was at the 11th position…Today, India has become the world’s fourth-largest economy. It is a matter of pride for… pic.twitter.com/OFNMPEKXvq

— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2025

Some prominent personalities who reiterated Subrahmanyam’s claims on social media include Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, Mahindra Group chairperson Anand Mahindra, RPG Group chairperson Harsh Goenka, tech entrepreneur Kunal Bahl who has appeared on Shark Tank India and Mamaearth CEO Ghazal Alagh. Several BJP leaders, or politicians associated with BJP allies and some journalists also parroted the statements, celebrating India’s growth trajectory. Note that most social media posts on this also shared a graphic where the source was IMF’s World Economic Outlook Report, April 2025.

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Fact Check

Alt News first thoroughly looked at International Monetary Fund’s latest publication, the World Economic Outlook Report, that was released on on April 22, 2025. Nowhere in that report does it say that India is the fourth-largest economy or that it has surpassed Japan.

We also found no statistical chart in the 190-page report that ranked countries’ gross domestic product (GDP) as indicated in the social media posts. Note that GDP is the sum total of the value of goods and services produced by a country annually and is often used to refer to the size of an economy.

However, the World Economic Outlook (WEO) section allows downloading economic database by country. Alt News downloaded the database for gross domestic product (at current prices expressed in US dollars) for all countries. The excel sheet mentioned the countries alphabetically and gave us the GDP (in US$) for all countries between 2022 and 2029. However, for India, the GDP figures after 2024 were estimates.

Also, note that for India, the year 2025 refers to the financial year 2025-26 or FY26 (April 2025 to March 2026), for which GDP numbers are estimates because we’re barely two months into this financial year. It does not refer to the calendar year 2025 (January to December). This is clarified in the report and in the statistical index.

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So, in 2024 or financial year 2024-25 (FY25), India’s GDP was $3.91 trillion, going by IMF’s World Economic Outlook data. According to the same IMF data, India is estimated to reach $4.187 trillion at the end of FY26.

We compared the data with Japan. Even for Japan, data after 2024 are all estimates. In the calendar year 2024, Japan’s GDP was $4.03 trillion. At the end of 2025, Japan’s GDP is estimated to reach $4.186 trillion.

A close reading of International Monetary Fund’s data clearly shows that India has not yet surpassed Japan, in terms of gross domestic product. According to estimates, it may overtake Japan at the end of financial year 2025-26 or FY26. Again, these are estimates and even then, the difference in the GDP of the two is fairly narrow. Currently, India remains in the fifth position

According to IMF’s WEO data, based on official GDP figures for 2024 (which we sorted in descending order; IMF gives data alphabetically), countries with the highest GDP are (1) the United States of America, (2) China, (3) Germany, (4) Japan, (5) India and the (6) United Kingdom (in that order). Rows 1-5 in the screenshot below are not rankings but appear on top owing to lack of data (denoted by n/a).

It’s strange then that Niti Aayog CEO Subrahmanyam, an Indian Administrative Service officer since 1987, who has served in several government positions, including at the PMO, and had a stint at the World Bank, used projections to refer to current rankings. We say this because other members of the policy think tank, such as Arvind Virmani, were careful to say that India would become the fourth-largest economy only by the end of 2025.

“India is in the process of becoming the fourth largest economy, and I am personally confident that will happen by the end of 2025 because we need (data) of all 12 months GDP to say that, you know, to assert that. So to say till then, it remains a forecast,” Virmani told news agency PTI. On Niti CEO BVR Subrahmanyam’s remark that India is already there, he said: “…I really do not know what the words anybody has used. Perhaps there was some word which was missed or something.”

Note that the IMF presents data from government figures and estimates and makes projections based on these. It does not collect or gather data on its own.

Also, even if we do surpass Japan in terms of GDP, experts have warned against reading too much into it or using that data as the marker of a country’s progress. That’s because a roaring GDP does not guarantee an overall high per capita income, nor does it take a holistic view of income inequalities and unemployment. That, however, is a much longer discussion.

To sum up, Niti Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam’s claim that India is currently the fourth-largest and a $4-trillion economy, citing IMF data, is misleading. India is currently the fifth-largest in terms of GDP. Projected estimates suggest that it could surpass Japan by the end of the 2025-26 fiscal.

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