India to topple Japan as world's 3rd-largest economy

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-to-topple-Japan-as-worlds-3rd-largest-economy/articleshow/10052481.cms

NEW DELHI: India might become the world's third largest economy in 2011 by overtaking Japan in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) measured according to the domestic purchasing power of the rupee, otherwise called purchasing power parity.

India is now the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China and Japan. Numbers from 2010 show that the Japanese economy was worth $4.31 trillion, with India snapping at its heels at $4.06 trillion. But after March's devastating tsunami and earthquakes, Japan's economy is widely expected to contract while India's economy will grow between 7% and 8% this fiscal. "India should overtake Japan in 2011 to become the third-largest economy in the world at purchasing power parity," said Sunil Sinha, head of research and senior economist at Crisil.

IMF forecasts show India and Japan neck-to-neck in 2011, but the disaster in Japan has brought the event forward. "Were it not for the earthquake and tsunami, India would have overtaken Japan in around 2013-14," said Sinha.

The purchasing power parity (PPP) method measures the size of an economy by levelling price differences between countries that occur in the process of conversion to a single currency.