Saturday, December 26, 2020

China to overtake US as largest global economy
 by 2028 — report

China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has cleared its path to become the world’s largest economy before the end of the decade, according to a new report by a UK think tank.

China is set to overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world


The coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout will help China rise past the US to become the world’s largest economy, a new report shows. Beijing is now expected to overtake the US by 2028, as opposed to 2033, a UK think tank said in its latest report.

"We expect the United States' share of global GDP to decline from 2021 onwards, and for the country to eventually be overtaken by China as the world's largest economy," the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in an annual report released on Saturday.

"We now expect this to happen in 2028, five years sooner than in the previous edition of the WELT," referring to the think tank’s World Economic League Table, which measures countries’ economic performance.

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China was 'skillful' with the pandemic


The quickened pace has been attributed to the difference between Beijing and Washington's response to the coronavirus pandemic and the recovery that followed. The report hailed China's "skillful management of the pandemic," where an early lockdown kept the numbers under control.

The report added that the US would also see a strong post-pandemic rebound in the coming year, but its growth would slow down to 1.9% and 1.6% over the years that follow.

China, on the other hand, is headed for an average growth rate of 5.7% a year from 2021 till 2025. Between 2026 and 2030, it is expected to slow down to 4.5% a year.

Japan is expected to remain the third-largest economy until the early 2030s, when India could overtake it, pushing Germany to the fifth spot.

see/dj (Reuters, CEBR annual report)


China to leapfrog U.S. as world's biggest economy by 2028: think tank

LONDON (Reuters) - China will overtake the United States to become the world's biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, a think tank said.
© Reuters/THOMAS PETER 
People look at the skyline of the Central Business District in Beijing

"For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China," the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in an annual report published on Saturday.

"The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China's favour."

The CEBR said China's "skilful management of the pandemic", with its strict early lockdown, and hits to long-term growth in the West meant China's relative economic performance had improved.

China looked set for average economic growth of 5.7% a year from 2021-25 before slowing to 4.5% a year from 2026-30.

While the United States was likely to have a strong post-pandemic rebound in 2021, its growth would slow to 1.9% a year between 2022 and 2024, and then to 1.6% after that.

Japan would remain the world's third-biggest economy, in dollar terms, until the early 2030s when it would be overtaken by India, pushing Germany down from fourth to fifth.

The United Kingdom, currently the fifth-biggest economy by the CEBR's measure, would slip to sixth place from 2024.

However, despite a hit in 2021 from its exit from the European Union's single market, British GDP in dollars was forecast to be 23% higher than France's by 2035, helped by Britain's lead in the increasingly important digital economy.

Europe accounted for 19% of output in the top 10 global economies in 2020 but that will fall to 12% by 2035, or lower if there is an acrimonious split between the EU and Britain, the CEBR said.

It also said the pandemic's impact on the global economy was likely to show up in higher inflation, not slower growth.

"We see an economic cycle with rising interest rates in the mid-2020s," it said, posing a challenge for governments which have borrowed massively to fund their response to the COVID-19 crisis.

"But the underlying trends that have been accelerated by this point to a greener and more tech-based world as we move into the 2030s."

(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Toby Chopra)



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