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The average wealth of a person in India is equivalent to that of a person in China’s poorest province.

Not much, besides the size of their populations, which hover around 193 million. The Indian state’s economy, however, is nothing like Brazil’s. With a gross domestic product of just over $100 billion, it’s more like Qatar, a country with less than 2 million residents.
This is just one of the findings of a new study by the Economist, which matched Indian states to countries with equivalent GDPs and population sizes.
Although India boasts one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, the magazine’s analysis, broken down in three maps, shows there is little to get excited about when you zoom in on the GDP of individual states.
On an India map based on average wealth per capita, poor and conflict-ridden nations featured a lot more prominently than advanced or even developing economies. Income per person in Rajasthan was found comparable to Sudan’s (about $2,100 per person), Bihar’s was in line with Eritrea’s ($1,020) and Jharkhand’s was similar to Haiti’s ($1,700). This was measured taking into account purchasing power differences between countries.

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The average income per person in Rajasthan is similar to Sudan’s. Above, a Rajasthani dancer.

India’s richest states didn’t glow either. In Gujarat, a state that is emerging as the darling of Indian business, wealth per person is roughly equivalent to that of residents of the Republic of Congo.
Take a look at Mumbai’s home state: with a GDP of $175.3 billion, Maharashtra has India’s largest economy. But this makes it just the size of Singapore’s–a city-state of around five million people. Maharashtra’s GDP per person, $4,743, is a little lower than Sri Lanka’s. There is one statistic, though, that may please Maharashtrians: the size of their state’s economy is comfortably larger than Pakistan’s as a whole ($162 billion.)
With a per capita GDP of $7,406, Goa is India’s richest state on a per person basis. This makes it comparable to Ukraine, where the average wealth of residents is a little lower.
The Economist has drawn similar “country equivalents” maps for Chinese provinces and U.S. states. India’s China comparisons aren’t too flattering, either: One of the China maps shows that the average wealth per person in India ($3,480) is comparable to that of Guizhou–China’s poorest province on a per person basis.
But there were some positive comparisons, too. Comparing the maps for U.S. and Indian states we found that Karnataka’s GDP is comparable to Hawaii’s, Andhra Pradesh ($85.7 billion) to Nebraska’s and that Gujarat’s economy is actually larger than New Mexico’s.
Besides, another BRIC country suffered a far bigger blow than India: a U.S. map shows that Russia’s GDP is lower than that of Texas.
You can follow Ms. Stancati on Twitter @margheritawsj.

Via: India Real Time