India has growth to rival China’s, and a more balanced economy to boot, at least in terms of the relative balance of imports and exports. WSJ:

The country’s gross domestic product grew 9.2% in the three months ended Sept. 30, India’s Central Statistical Organization said Thursday. The robust growth, powered by strong spending by Indian consumers and corporations, compared with an 8.4% expansion in the same quarter last year and was significantly above analysts’ expectations. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had predicted that GDP growth would be 8.9%.

Following an 8.9% expansion in the preceding quarter, the latest growth spurt means India’s economy is growing at a rate close to China’s in the first six months of the financial year beginning April 1. “The growth witnessed in the [fiscal] first half is the highest-ever growth since [economic] reforms started in 1991,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, declared. “Just savor the moment.”…

To improve the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Indians still living below the poverty line, it is critical that New Delhi keep its economic expansion churning along at above 8%, analysts say. After Thursday’s quarterly data was released, many economists scrambled to lift their GDP growth predictions for the financial year ending March 31 to about 8.5% from 8%…. faster expansion means that politicians and financial regulators have to keep a closer watch on the potentially negative side effects of India’s increasing affluence. Inflation, for example, is dangerously close to breaching India’s central bank target rate for the fiscal year of 5.0% to 5.5%. As measured by India’s wholesale price index, inflation was running at 5.29% year-on-year in the week ended Nov. 11 and some analysts suggest it may have already risen above 5.5%.

Higher growth and inflation rates will likely persuade the Reserve Bank of India, or RBI, to hike its key rates at its next quarterly meeting in January, if not before, analysts said. “I think the GDP growth numbers and inflation will tie the RBI’s hands for a rate hike,” said Rajeev Malik, senior economist at J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in Singapore. After the GDP figures were announced, Mr. Malik lifted his GDP growth estimate for the fiscal year to 8.2% to 8.3% from 8.0%.

Finance Minister Chidambaram said that while the government would like to see the inflation rate below 4%, he contended rising prices are one of the costs to having a strong economy. “An economy which is experiencing growth will have inflation,” he said. There were a few other negative spots in the overall rosy growth picture. Agricultural production — which makes up around 20% of GDP and employs about 60% of India’s one-billion citizens — slid to 1.7% during the quarter from 4% a year earlier. However, the rural slowdown was more than offset but scorching growth in the manufacturing and services sectors which continued to expand more than 10% each.

Another potential cost of India’s growth is its ballooning trade deficit, analysts said. Unlike China, India’s growth is powered much more by domestic demand rather than exports. The country’s trade deficit surged to a record high of $6.2 billion in October from $2.9 billion a year earlier. Spurred by the booming economy, Indian consumers are buying an unprecedented amount of cars and clothing from abroad as local companies import more and more commodities and equipment to expand their production.

On some days it is just amazing to us that the Jihad-minded are so blind to the reality that while they are are busy in their little minds plotting the downfall of the modern world, billions of infidels in China and India are spending all their time trying to get rich — and succeeding.

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