India Surpasses China to Claim Top Spot in December’s Emerging Markets Ranking

In December, the Indian economy rose to the top of Mint’s Emerging Markets tracker for the first time in five months. The stock market played a significant role in this rebound, with market capitalization increasing by 9% from November.

Before this, the market had faced challenges since August, which kept India from reaching the top. However, in December, India outperformed China, earning higher scores in stock market results, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), and currency performance.

As a result, China slipped to the second position in the rankings. While its growth in exports remained strong and inflation stayed manageable, it was India’s overall performance that shone brighter. China also reported a solid GDP growth of 5.4% for the December quarter.

The Philippines made notable progress, climbing two spots to secure third place. It achieved an impressive GDP growth of 6.3% in the December quarter, and its currency performance also improved compared to other countries.

Mint’s Emerging Markets Tracker, which started in September 2019, analyzes economic activity across ten major emerging markets using seven key indicators. These indicators include real GDP growth, manufacturing PMI, export growth, retail inflation, import cover, exchange rate movements, and stock market performance.

The rankings are provisional and will be updated as new data comes in.

Methodology: The tracker summarizes economic activity across the markets based on seven indicators. The best-performing economy gets a score of 100, while the worst receives zero, with others ranked in between. The final score for each country is the average of its seven indicators.

It’s worth noting that Russia, previously included in the tracker, has been temporarily removed due to inconsistent data since the beginning of the Ukraine war.