India set to overtake Japan as fourth-largest economy

India is expected to become the world's fourth-largest economy by 2027, overtaking Japan, according to International Monetary Fund projections that on Thursday laid out the Asian nations' contrasting trajectories. The IMF said Japan would remain the fourth-largest country by nominal gross domestic product this year, but in 2027 India is set to take its place, with a GDP reaching US$4.52 trillion. Japan is slated to slip to sixth place that year, falling behind both India and the United Kingdom, the projection showed. India has shown strong growth in recent years despite global economic headwinds, with the IMF this week raising its forecasts for 2026 growth to hit seven percent. Japan, by contrast, is plagued by an ageing population and other structural problems that have seen the Asian giant's growth stagnate. The United States is the world's largest economy, followed by China and Germany. Releasing the IMF's regional economic outlook for Asia-Pacific on Thursday, Asia director Krishna Srinivasan said India entered the current energy price shock caused by the US-Israel war on Iran from a strong position. "India entered this with very strong fundamentals," he said. "Growth was strong, fiscal prudence was pretty much enshrined, they had lots of reserves and so on. And so in that context,...