The comparative data desk
Eight economies — India, China, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam — on one comparative frame. Every series official, sourced and dated; every omission documented. This is the dataset behind both specialist desks and the comparative work in research assignments and consulting mandates.
What “maintained” means
Macro data is not tick data, and this desk does not pretend otherwise. Maintained means the desk shows the latest reported official observation for each series, for each of the eight economies, and is refreshed as the underlying source releases or revises. Annual figures do not flicker; they update when the world does. Each series carries its source ID, its unit, its observation years and its retrieval date — and a country whose latest report is too old to compare fairly shows n/a rather than a stale rank.
The same dataset sits behind the Emerging Markets Desk’s dashboards and the India Desk’s comparative monitoring, and it is the starting frame for the comparative work in research assignments and consulting mandates. What a client desk receives is this frame narrowed to their markets, kept current, and read — the interpretation is the desk’s work. This page is the public face of the data underneath it.
Two reading modes
Global anchors · EM peers
Global anchors set the reading against China and the United States — the two systems every emerging-market allocation is implicitly measured against. EM peers set it against up to three of Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam, chosen with the chips. India is the subject line in both modes; the indicator sits beneath.
Real GDP growth
annual %
Methodology, revisions and omissions
Reading modes. Global anchors set India against China and the United States: the two systems every India allocation is implicitly measured against. EM peers set India against Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam — a reading set, not a claim that these five exhaust the comparison. The right peer group depends on the question, and the written research chooses it question by question.
Observations. All values are reported annual observations from World Bank Open Data (api.worldbank.org, API v2), retrieved 5 September 2026. Nothing is estimated, interpolated or extrapolated. Where countries report on different lags, each value carries its own year; the ranking table compares latest-available observations and withholds a rank (n/a) where a country’s latest report predates the indicator’s freshness threshold.
Documented omissions. India’s 2025 listed-market-capitalisation observation in the source series is inconsistent with exchange-reported market capitalisation and is omitted rather than smoothed in; India shows 2024 for that row. Central government debt was retrieved but is not displayed: the World Bank central-government series ends in 2018 for India and is missing entirely for China and Vietnam, which makes a fair ranking impossible from this source. Vietnam’s remittances series ends in 2004 and is likewise not ranked.
Derived series. The currency panel indexes each currency’s US-dollar value from annual-average official exchange rates (PA.NUS.FCRF), rebased to 100 at 2000. A falling line is depreciation against the dollar. This is the only transformation applied anywhere on the desk, and it is arithmetic, not estimation.
Ranking. A country is ranked only when its latest observation is within three years of the newest observation in that row; older values read n/a with their year shown, because a 2020 figure is not a comparison with a 2024 one. Shading runs from the strongest tint (highest value) to the lightest, on one scale for every country; India is marked by the edge of its cell, not a different scale. A rank is a reading order, not a verdict: high private credit is depth to one reader and leverage to another. The written research is where interpretation happens.
The full source policy — hierarchy, revisions, vintages, comparability — is at Sources & data.
The series register
Every series, its source, in print
Eight economies: India, China, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam. All series from World Bank Open Data, retrieved 5 September 2026, reported annual observations from 1995 where available.
| Series | Source ID | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real GDP growth | NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG | annual % | All eight economies to 2025. |
| GDP, current US$ | NY.GDP.MKTP.CD | US$ bn | All eight to 2025. |
| GDP per head | NY.GDP.PCAP.CD | current US$ | All eight to 2025. |
| CPI inflation | FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG | annual % | US latest 2024. |
| Current account | BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS | % of GDP | Vietnam latest 2024. |
| FX reserves, incl. gold | FI.RES.TOTL.CD | US$ bn | All eight to 2025. |
| FDI net inflows | BX.KLT.DINV.WD.GD.ZS | % of GDP | Vietnam latest 2024. |
| Private-sector credit | FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS | % of GDP | Vietnam latest 2022; China, South Africa 2024. |
| Manufacturing value added | NV.IND.MANF.ZS | % of GDP | US latest 2021. |
| Services value added | NV.SRV.TOTL.ZS | % of GDP | US latest 2021. |
| Exports of goods & services | NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS | % of GDP | US latest 2024. |
| R&D expenditure | GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS | % of GDP | Reported infrequently; latest 2020–2024 by country. |
| Urban population | SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS | % of total | All eight to 2025. |
| Age dependency ratio | SP.POP.DPND | dependents per 100 | All eight to 2025. |
| Personal remittances received | BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT | US$ bn | Vietnam series ends 2004; not ranked. |
| Services exports | BX.GSR.NFSV.CD | US$ bn | Vietnam latest 2024. |
| Official exchange rate | PA.NUS.FCRF | LCU per US$, annual avg | Displayed as a US-dollar-value index, 2000 = 100. |
| Listed market capitalisation | CM.MKT.LCAP.GD.ZS | % of GDP | India’s anomalous 2025 observation omitted, documented above. |
| Bank non-performing loans | FB.AST.NPER.ZS | % of gross loans | Latest 2024–2025 by country. |
| Population | SP.POP.TOTL | millions | Context series; not charted. |
| Central government debt | GC.DOD.TOTL.GD.ZS | % of GDP | Retrieved, not displayed: India ends 2018; China and Vietnam missing. |
India’s policy repo rate, quoted elsewhere on this site, is sourced separately from the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Statement of 5 August 2026 and is not a World Bank series.
Eight economies. Too many to watch properly?
That is the argument for a specialist desk, for an assignment or on an ongoing basis. The Emerging Markets Desk maintains this frame across the markets you actually hold, with the interpretation attached; the India Desk reads the deepest market in it, monthly, against the rest. Either can start from one question.