2 minutes to read by  RBC Emerging Markets Equity team, V.Erb Mar 25, 2024

Over seventy years on from independence, India’s illustriousness is once again palpable. We discuss why the country is flourishing.

Back in 2003, an Asian equities strategist discussed in a report how India was seen as the most attractive of Asia’s stock markets yet also a ‘tortoise’ – in comparison to then-booming China, the ‘hare’. The year marked the beginning of an 11-year private sector CapEx-led cycle, and this resulted in India outperforming the MSCI AC World Index by 460% during that period¹.

Two decades on, it’s no exaggeration to say that 2023 was the year that India arrived on the world stage. From its role as G20 host to its successful moon landing, the country was put firmly in the spotlight. As well as emerging as an FDI destination, India became known for its geopolitical role as a counterbalance to China and its position as a major military partner. The country was also a beneficiary of the world’s key technological, cultural, economic and sociopolitical developments shifting in favour of the Indian Ocean Rim Association.

Having the largest and youngest population on earth of 1.4 billion people, the country’s demographics are supportive of growth and with the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power in 2014, India has seen almost a decade of stable politics, encouraging reforms on all fronts and a real GDP growth rate averaging circa 6%.

The country is also once again in the early stages of another private sector CapEx cycle, where corporate India has delevered from close to 1x gross debt-to-equity in 2015 to just 0.5x currently.

It’s clear that India today is much more than just a bottom-up play, and the macro story – which always used to belong to China – is now equally compelling.

^{1 MSCI. Performance is in USD terms.}

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