India’s economy grew 7.8 per cent year-on-year in the April-June quarter – a figure that has split India’s economists, and one that has just found an unlikely defender in Beijing.
The number was disputed after former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg argued that actual growth was closer to 2.6 per cent. Since then, the government and several economists have pushed back, defending the official data. In the middle of this domestic row, the Modi government has now won backing from an unexpected quarter: Global Times, a Chinese state-affiliated outlet, has published an opinion piece largely endorsing the credibility of India’s growth figures.
What’s splitting Indian economists
The row centres on methodology: Garg’s 2.6 per cent figure compares this year’s current-price GDP with last year’s number under the old statistical series, rather than the revised one – a method critics say wrongly mixes two different series. Government officials and several economists have countered that the standard practice is to compare GDP within a single, consistent series, while critics of the official line argue that even a modest inflation adjustment would erase most of the claimed real growth.
Into this debate, the Modi government has now won backing from an unexpected quarter: Global Times has published an opinion piece largely endorsing the credibility of India’s growth figures.
The Chinese defence
The piece, written by Global Times reporter Hu Weijia, addresses the scepticism head-on and suggests the underlying growth is genuine. To make its case, the article points to the components of growth: India’s nominal GDP stood at roughly $3.92 trillion in 2025-26, according to IMF data cited by the Indian minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary. Investment rose 11.9 per cent during the quarter, household consumption climbed 7.1 per cent, and exports grew 12 per cent – the fastest of the three. For Global Times, the export performance is the most telling data point.
Hu Weijia writes that “a weaker rupee can reduce the dollar value of the economy even when the country’s real GDP is growing.” On what climbing the rankings requires: the piece says that progress depends on “deeper integration into global supply chains, greater openness to trade and investment”.
Weijia also tackles a puzzle that has vexed observers: how can an economy grow 7.8 per cent and still slide down the global rankings? India overtook Japan in December 2025 to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, only to slip to sixth since – despite official projections that it would overtake Germany to become third-largest by 2030. The piece contends a currency effect, not a real slowdown, is to blame: a weaker rupee has shrunk India’s dollar-denominated GDP.
Climbing back up the table, it argues, will take more than domestic expansion – deeper integration into global supply chains, greater openness to trade and investment, and stronger manufacturing competitiveness, all of which would also make the economy more resilient to currency swings. The commentary flags the upcoming BRICS summit as one venue where India could advance those ties with other emerging economies.
Its broader argument is that India’s position in the world economy cannot be reduced to a single ranking: a lower dollar-denominated placing is a snapshot shaped by exchange rates, not a verdict on the country’s direction.
The row over GDP figure in India centres on whether comparing this year’s current-price GDP with last year’s figure under the old statistical series – rather than the revised one – produces a growth rate as low as 2.6 per cent, a method Garg’s critics say wrongly mixes two different data series. Government officials and several economists have countered that the standard practice is to compare GDP within a single, consistent series, arguing Garg’s widely circulated figure improperly combines two different series, while critics counter that even a modest inflation adjustment would erase most of the claimed real growth.
For Indian policymakers navigating a domestic row over the reliability of the growth data, the commentary offers an external vote of confidence. Coming from an outlet closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s messaging, it could also be read as a signal from Beijing, which has long sought to separate border disputes from trade ties and has pushed for closer commerce between the two countries. The article uses the moment to press the case for India’s deeper global economic integration – one in which China could play a significant role.
