‘China will overtake US by 2017’

By 2020 three of the world’s five largest economies will be emerging countries, according to a Euromonitor International prediction. At that stage, China, India and Russia will account for 30.4% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. Advanced economies are being displaced by these emerging market superpowers. The Euromonitor study reveals that a large manufacturing base, cheap labour costs, the world’s largest population and economies of scale have resulted in unprecedented economic growth in China. “Although growth is slowing,” it added, “the delayed recovery in advanced economies from the global economic downturn means China will overtake the USA as the world’s biggest economy in 2017, and account for 19.0% of global GDP in PPP terms by 2020. “In 1990 the USA accounted for a quarter of global GDP in PPP terms but we forecast this to plummet to 16.0% by 2020. “India overtook Japan as the world’s third-largest economy in PPP terms in 2011 and its demographic advantage means the country could become the world’s biggest economy in the coming decades. “Russia will become the world’s fifth largest economy in 2016 in PPP terms, driven by its energy sector, as one of the top oil and natural gas producers worldwide. It also offers potential in its rapidly expanding consumer market, which we forecast will be the ninth-largest globally in real terms in 2020.” Similar sentiments were expressed by China Times, according to Mike Poverello’s blog. Economists predicted to the newspaper that the scales of emerging economies would surpass those of developed countries for the first time this year with China their key driver. Emerging countries like China, Brazil, India, Russia and Indonesia have been growing strongly, it added, while Mexico, Pakistan and Turkey were also developing fast and following them closely. The GDPs of these countries are likely to amount more than half of the world’s economic output this year. This will mean that Western developed economies will contribute less than half of the world’s economy – an unprecedented phenomenon in the past 100 years, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. Economic growth in these emerging countries has been boosted by faster population growth than in developed countries. Economic experts predicted that their average economic growth was likely to reach 4.5%, compared to a meagre 0.3% in eurozone countries. China’s economy, which has become the world’s second largest, is likely to lead the emerging nations with GDP growth of 8%, while Brazil may replace Britain as the world’s sixth-largest economy. INSERT ‘Brazil may replace Britain as the world’s sixth-largest economy.’