India to be among top 5 economies in the world by 2022, pushing Britain out, overtaking Germany

Riding on a high economic growth prospect, India is set to overtake Germany in 2022 as the world's fourth-largest economy and push United Kingdom out of the top five economies of the world. However, the journey will not be easy as the country has to deal with many challenges to maintain the current growth momentum.

According to a report in Bloomberg which is based on the analysis of growth projections by the International Monetary Fund, India has to deal with multiple challenges including the biggest pile of distressed assets.

Underlining some of the challenges, the report said: "These include executing a wide-ranging overhaul of the tax system, sorting out the biggest pile of distressed assets among major economies, reviving lackluster productivity, substantially increasing employment opportunities, encouraging corporate investment and overcoming a significant infrastructure shortfall." 

In a recent report, the IMF observed that India's economy has grown at a strong pace in recent years owing to the implementation of critical structural reforms, favorable terms of trade, and lower external vulnerabilities.

The IMF believes that India is going to continue to grow at a fast pace, with a projected 6.8 per cent rate for Financial Year 2016-17 and 7.2 per cent in 2017-18.

The IMF report also highlighted India's effort to streamlining the taxing-system and said that it would help raise country's medium-term growth to above eight per cent.

Speaking on the tax reform in India, IMF Deputy Managing Director Tao Zhang said, "The government has made significant progress on important economic reforms that will support strong and sustainable growth going forward."

"We expect that the goods and services tax (GST), which is targeted to be applied starting in July, will help raise India's medium-term growth to above 8 per cent, as it will enhance production and the movement of goods and services across Indian states," the IMF official said.

Currently, world's top five largest economies are United States, China, Japan, Germany and United Kingdom. India ranks 6 with $2,454.458 billion nominal GDP.