India need not mimic China's model to achieve high growth rates, as similar circumstances do not exist today, Jean-Pierre Landau, associate professor at SciencesPo – Paris, told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the Kautilya Economic Conclave.

“China and India have some common points, such as scale and size. And we tend to underestimate them. India also has the technology capability, which it could leverage,” Landau said, noting that India still needed to initiate factor market reforms. “Labour market and education reforms, skilling initiatives, and incorporation of new technologies are needed to push for sustained growth in the coming decade.”

The Indian economy is likely to cool down a bit this year after achieving an 8.2 percent growth in FY24. The Reserve Bank of India on October 9 reiterated its forecast of 7.2 percent growth for the current fiscal.

India has accelerated at a rate of over 7 percent for the last three years.

Landau noted that while the threat of artificial intelligence taking away jobs is a concern worldwide, India has a ready-made solution in the form of its vast workforce of computer scientists, which could help leapfrog a lot of concerns.

He also stressed on the need for urban planning to address the growing number of city dwellers. “We need smart cities, and we need to make smarter cities than we have now,” he said.

The government has plans to develop 100 smart cities across the country, but the programme has missed successive deadlines. A Moneycontrol analysis has found that the mission may again miss its March 31, 2025 deadline as a quarter of projects are still pending in 22 of the 100 cities. As of August, 60 cities had achieved over 90 percent completion rate.

Landau highlighted that a one-size-fits-all approach to climate change would not work; instead, the world needed each country to develop its specific strategy. “I don’t think we will have a coordinated approach to climate change. We will have technology competition, which could present favourable outcomes,” he noted.