To understand why some countries have economic growth faster than others, or larger than others, we must first know what “economic growth” is. Economic growth is the increase of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) or other measure of aggregate income, typically reported as the annual rate of change in real GDP. Economic growth is primarily driven by improvements in productivity, which involves producing more goods and services with the same inputs of labor, capital, energy and materials (1). Pretty much everything you can imagine contributes to a countries economy and ultimately economic growth; from raw materials to availability of energy, from geography to political governance. The strength of a countries economy tends to speak to its place in the general importance of the world. Being economically weak a country tends to be poor and normally overlooked, while economically strong countries are able to effect other countries financially and thus tend to have much more sway in world dealings. I will discuss the two countries of China and India and look at their current economic situation and keys to their future growth.

India and China
India and China have much in common and also many differences that make their economies and economic growth very different. India and China are neighbors in south East Asia, sharing about 2100 miles of boarder between each other that runs along the Himalayas. Both countries are ancient in origin and birth places of civilization outside of the Middle East. They both have very large work forces available and 100 years ago both countries were considered to be fairly useless in the global economy except for tea production and some raw materials like silk or dyes. Both countries were at least partially colonized by the English. Both countries are potentially strong economies, although China has more realization of this possibility