New Delhi: Developing metro economies continue to be the sites of faster growth in 2014, further converging with their more developed peers. In an economic performance index combining employment and GDP per capita growth, no Indian city is included in top 10 or even top 15 list of world growth chart.
As the poll results settles over Delhi with Arvind Kejriwal having almost a full house, will also be meeting PM Narendra Modi later in the day over the dismal rating of India's capital and premier metropolis in the world's growth chart.
The Brookings Institution's 2014 Global Metro Monitor Map that measures and compares growth patterns in the world's 300 largest metro economies puts Delhi at 18th place, followed by Kolkata (among Indian cities) at 32nd. Mumbai (52) Chennai (57) Hyderabad (76) and Bengaluru (87), round up the Indian cities in the Top 100, which expectedly is dominated by Chinese cities.
China has 11 cities in the Top 20, and four in the Top 10. Surprisingly, Turkey has four in the Top 10, including Izmir, Istanbul, and Bursa at two, three and four. Macau is at top spot. Six developed metro economies from the United States and United Kingdom were also among the top performers.
The report compares growth patterns in the world's 300 largest metro economies on two key economic indicators - annualized growth rate of real GDP per capita and annualized growth rate of employment.
These indicators, which are combined into an economic performance index on which metro areas are ranked, matter because they reflect the importance that people and policymakers attach to achieving rising incomes and standards of living and generating widespread labor market opportunity, the report says.
There is increasing emphasis by planners in recent years on cities because, as the report shows, with only 20% of the population, the 300 largest metropolitan economies in the world accounted for nearly half of global output in 2014.
Despite the dismal ranking of Indian cities, they have all improved on their rankings from the 2009-2014 period, pointing to better prospects.
80 percent of the top performers metropolitan economies are developing countries, particularly in Asia. The highest ranked developed western city is London at 26 and the top ranked US City is Austin at 38.
