IN RECENT weeks, economists at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Goldman Sachs, a bank, have tentatively suggested that within a year or two, India’s economy might be growing more quickly than China’s. The day came sooner than they had imagined. Official statistics published on February 9th revealed that India’s GDP rose by 7.5% in 2014, a shade faster than China’s economy managed over the same period (see chart). Narendra Modi, India’s publicity-savvy prime minister, could scarcely have hoped for a better endorsement of his first few months in office.

The figures came as a surprise to many but were foreshadowed a week ago, when India’s statistics office released revised GDP figures in an exercise known as “rebasing”. Real GDP is typically measured by reference to the prices and structure of the economy in a base year. Over time this one-year snapshot of the economy becomes less relevant and the GDP figures less accurate. So the base year is changed periodically. For India, it changed on January 20th from 2004-05 to 2011-12. Partly as a result of this, GDP growth for 2013-14 was revised up from 5.1% to 6.9%.

This looked at odds with other indicators, which suggested the economy was much weaker at that time. Back then, India, like other biggish emerging markets, suffered a mini-crisis. A growth rate of 7.5% for the final quarter of 2014 also seems a little too sturdy given sluggish car sales, feeble credit growth, and the soggy results reported by many consumer-facing firms.

But the one thing economists agree on is that the economy is doing better now than it was in 2013. Indeed India has been a rare bright spot among emerging markets. Mr Modi’s pro-growth government won a healthy mandate in elections last May and after a slow start, it has pursued its reform agenda more urgently in recent weeks. The stockmarket has boomed, in part because foreign investors remain keen buyers of Indian assets, even as they pull money from other emerging economies. The rupee is firm. The central bank has even expanded its foreign-exchange reserves to a record $330 billion—thus keeping the rupee from rising by more.

The economy is likely to pick up further. The recent falls in commodity prices, which have hurt raw-material exporters such as Brazil, Russia and South Africa, are a boon for India, which imports 80% of the oil it consumes. Rich economies may fret about the dangers of falling prices around the world; Indians, on the other hand, are pleased they no longer have double-digit inflation at home.

The diminishing threat from inflation has already prompted India’s central bank to reduce interest rates in January, from 8% to 7.75%. More cuts are expected this year. But first India’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, will give what is likely to be a landmark budget speech on February 28th. Whatever else he has to say, he will have much to boast about on the economic-growth front.