New global economic powers set to emerge

Those of you who want to move to a county which offers the best future economic prospects could be well advised to look east.

A new report carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) reveals that China will comfortably be the world’s economic powerhouse by 2050, ahead of the United States of America, with India in third place.

China is projected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2017 in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), and by 2027 in market exchange rate terms.

India is then predicted to become the third ‘global economic giant’ by 2050, while another emerging market, Brazil, is predicted to move up to 4th ahead of Japan.

“China, India, Brazil and the other emerging markets highlighted in our study will become not just low cost production locations but also increasingly large consumer markets,” the report said.

“At a time when trend annual growth is projected to be no more than around 2 per cent in the advanced economies, companies seeking growth will need to look increasingly to these emerging markets.”

The news is not so positive for countries like the UK and Australia. It is predicted that the UK will lose its place as one of the world’s top 10 economic heavyweights by 2050 (it’s currently ranked in tenth place), while Australia will slip out of the top 20 during the next 35 years from its current 17th position.

Canada is also set to tumble down the rankings over the coming years, as new economic powerhouses, especially in Asia, start to emerge.

Top 10 economic powers in 2050 (according to PWC)

  1. China
  2. USA
  3. India
  4. Brazil
  5. Japan
  6. Russia
  7. Mexico
  8. Indonesia
  9. Germany
  10. France