India needs to grow at 8-9% for 20 years to become developed country by 2047: Deloitte

India needs to grow at 8-9 per cent for the next 20 years to become a developed nation by 2047 as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Deloitte South Asia Ceo Romal Shetty said.

He said India can benefit from the 'China plus one' strategy as no other country can offer the scale and size of operations as is available here.

Referring to the space sector, Shetty said India already has 200 startups and can attract investments of USD 100 billion by 2040.

"We need to grow at 8-9 per cent till at least 2047 to become a developed economy.... Moving away from middle income level... To grow at that pace is not easy. Very few countries in the world have been able to grow at a pace of 8-9 per cent year-on -year," Shetty told PTI.

Modi in an interview to PTI recently said India will be in the top 3 economies in the near future.

"By 2047, I am sure that our country will be among the developed countries. Our economy will be even more inclusive and innovative," he had said.

India is currently the fifth largest economy in the world, after the US, China, Japan and Germany. An S&P Global report had last month projected India's economy to double to USD 6.7 trillion by 2031, from USD 3.4 trillion currently.

Shetty also said India can look for opportunities in the agriculture, space sectors, and other sunrise areas like semiconductor and EVs. He further said the country is building roads at a 'frantic pace' of 16,000-18,000 kilometre a year, which in turn boosts development and trade.

"Multinational companies are looking at 'China plus one'. There is no doubt about that. While there are other countries that will benefit when companies decide to move their manufacturing to somewhere else apart from China, no other country has the scale and size as India has," Shetty added.

He said the big challenge that India is facing is import of crude oil. Similarly, even though technology has transformed the country, it can be divisive and there are biases in Artificial Intelligence (AI). "These are things we should be concerned about".