Except for one, none of these statements on the Indian economy were made by Morgan Stanley - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
January 5, 2021
A post is being shared widely on social media with a claim that a few statements regarding India’s economy and PM Modi were put out by Morgan Stanley Research. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Statements made in Morgan Stanley Research praising India’s economy and PM Modi.
Fact: Except for one statement on India’s GDP reaching $6 trillion by 2027, none of the statements in the message was made by Morgan Stanley. The ‘$6 trillion GDP’ statement was also made by Morgan Stanley in a report published in 2017 i.e., much before the COVID-19 crisis. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched about the message given in the post, it was found that the same message is being shared on the internet at least since 2018. So, the post is old and the statements in the message are not regarding the current economic situation in the country. Some of the old posts can be seen here and here.
There are multiple statements in the post. Let us check one-by-one and verify if Morgan Stanley has made those statements.
‘PM Modi has not borrowed even $1 from the World Bank in the last 3 years’?
We could not find any evidence to suggest that Morgan Stanley has made the above statement. Let us also verify if the statement in itself is true or false. When searched on the World Bank website about the loans taken by India, it is found that India also took loans during the period 2014 – 2020, under various categories for different central and state projects from the World Bank’s IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and IDA (International Development Association).  The year-wise break-up of the lending for the period 2012-20 can be seen below.
Recently, the Indian government borrowed from the World Bank for ‘Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Emergency Response’. So, it is not true that the Modi government has taken zero loans from the World Bank.
‘In the next 10 years, India’s GDP would surpass $6 Trillion’?
When we searched on the internet, it was found that the Morgan Stanley made the above statement in its report – “India’s Digital Leap: The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Opportunity” published in 2017. The full report can be read here. So, it is much before COVID-19 crisis affected the economy.
Forbes Magazine said, “India’s Economy to rise manifold only because of Modi”?
We could not find any evidence to suggest that Morgan Stanley or Forbes has made the above statement regarding India’s economy. An article published by Forbes with the title – ‘India: What’s Going On With Modi’s Economy?’, in January 2020 can be read here.
In ‘Economic Growth’, India has moved up 31 places to be ranked 40 amongst 137 listed countries?
There is neither such ranking (solely on ‘Economic Growth’) where India is ranked 40 nor Morgan Stanley made the above statement. India is ranked 40 among 137 countries in ‘The Global Competitiveness Index 2017-2018 edition’. It improved its ranking by 31 places from the 2014-15 rank of 71 (out of 144 countries). So, the given rank improvement was related to competitiveness index, not economic growth, and the improvement was between 2014-15 and 2017-18. In ‘The Global Competitiveness Report 2019’, India ranked 68 out of 141 countries.
To sum it up, except for one, none of the statements in the message on Indian economy was made by Morgan Stanley and the content of some of the statements is also false.