India could risk falling catastrophically behind in global competitiveness as China surges ahead, potentially leading India by as much as 50 years in terms of development, warned Suresh Sambandam, CEO of .
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Sambandam argued that China has gained a 20-year advantage over the United States, while India lags 20 years behind America, creating a massive net gap between China and India.
“China is 20 years ahead. Not against India. Against the USA. India is like 20 years behind the USA. Net China is like 40-50 years ahead of India. We have already lost 10 years and will lose another 5 years by focusing on changing history, language imposition, communalism, crony capitalism. This will be the dark age when we look back after 25 years, one that hurt us a lot,” the chief of the AI-powered low-code application development platform stated on X.
Expressing disappointment at India’s current trajectory, the entrepreneur, who also co-founded software-as-a-service community SaaSBoomi (rebranded to BoomiAI), said, “I was hoping for a transformation like the golden years of 1990s liberalisation. Disappointed,” he added.
Sambandam’s comments highlight growing concerns among industry observers about India’s priorities and their impact on long-term economic competitiveness in the global market.
Earlier in March, investor and GSF founder Rajesh Sawhney also cautioned that India needs a much higher growth rate to achieve its goal of becoming a $5-trillion economy.
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“India will be a $5T economy in 2027. We will have to grow 12%++ a year to add $1T to our economy from 2027 onwards in 14-18 months….but our current rate of growth is 6-8% per annum in the past 10 years,” said Sawhney in a post on X.
“We took 3-4 years to go from $3T to $4T, in that period China has added about two Indias to its economy. Acceleration in GDP Growth requires deeper reforms and ease of doing business, welcoming arms to foreign capital, and broader entrepreneurship beyond a few industrial houses,” he added.
Meanwhile, recent estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed India could achieve a GDP growth of $383 billion in 2025, making it the highest-ever annual addition apart from the post-COVID-19 recovery year of 2021.
However, even with a projected GDP growth rate of 6.5%, which exceeds China’s 4.5%, India is expected to add far less to its economy as China is anticipated to add $1.26 trillion during the same year.
