Amid the euphoria of Nifty touching record highs and the ongoing festive season; Morgan Stanley’s report says that India’s economy will grow by more than 10% annually in the coming decade, buoyed by demographics, reforms and globalization. According to the global research firm, India, which was already on its way to growing at a brisk pace over the next decade, has found excellent growth triggers due to two major initiatives—digitizing its predominantly cash-based economy and reforming its archaic tax system— “which have the potential to amplify India’s expansion, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing large economies over the next 10 years,” says a report.
“The country was already on a strong trajectory, but digitization puts India’s nominal GDP growth on track to compound annually by more than 10% in U.S. dollar terms over the coming decade,” says Anil Agarwal, Head of Asian Financial Research at Morgan Stanley. “The result could be a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity, he observed.
Earlier last month, Ridham Desai, Head of Equity Research and India Equity Strategist at Morgan Stanley said, “We estimate that digitisation will provide a boost of 50-75 basis points to GDP growth and forecast that India will grow to USD 6 trillion economies and achieve upper-middle income status by 2026-27.”
Not just the GDP, Morgan Stanley also estimates benchmark Sensex to cross the 1 lakh-mark by 2028. According to Ridham Desai, Indian stock markets are likely to remain robust as a stronger economic growth should drive stronger corporate earnings growth. The global brokerage firm noted that there is scope for visible shifts in economic activity starting in 2018 which would eventually lead India to be the top five equity markets in the world with a market capitalisation of $6.1 trillion, and the third-largest listed financial services sector around the globe with a market cap of $1.8 trillion by 2027. The global brokerage firm estimated that India’s real and nominal GDP growth will grow annually by 7.1% and 11.2% over the coming decade.
According to the global firm, India is seeing a shift to digitisation, as the government is further nudging the country toward cashless payments by restricting values of cash transaction and incentivizing digital payments; its target is to increase digital transactions six-fold this year.
“We believe Internet access will double in the next 10 years and we estimate that 915 million Indians will be on the Internet by 2026,” says Ridham Desai, Head of India Research. Further, Morgan Stanley sees demographics as a further boost to digitisation. India has among the highest numbers of young people entering the work-force over the next two decades. “These individuals are not attached to old banking habits and they will have access to mobile phones and smartphones,” says Ridham Desai. Finally Morgan Stanley says, “We expect India to continue to be among the world’s best-performing markets, with a potential 24% CAGR in U.S.-dollar returns over the coming five years.”
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