PTI New Delhi

NITI Aayog member Arvind Virmani on Monday said India is set to become the fourth largest economy in the world by the end of 2025, an assertion which came days after NITI CEO BVR Subrahmanyam claimed India has already overtaken Japan to reach that spot.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released in April had said that India is expected to be the fourth largest economy in the world with a GDP of USD 4.19 trillion in 2025, ahead of Japan. "India is in the process of becoming the fourth largest economy, and I am personally confident that will happen by the end of 2025 because we need (data) of all 12 months GDP to say that, you know, to assert that. So to say till then, it remains a forecast," Virmani told PTI.

Asked to comment on NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam's remark that India has become the fourth largest economy in the world, the eminent economist said: "So this is a complicated question, and I really do not know what the words anybody has used. Perhaps there was some word which was missed or something." Citing IMF data, Subrahmanyam, last week, said that the size of the Indian economy today is larger than Japan's.

"We are the fourth largest economy as I speak. We are a USD 4 trillion economy as I speak," the NITI Aayog CEO  had said. It is only the US, China and Germany which are larger than India, and if we stick to what is being planned and what is being thought through, in 2.5-3 years, we will be the third largest economy," Subrahmanyam had said.