Goodbye, Italy and Russia. By 2050, the world’s 10 largest economies will include new powers like Mexico and Indonesia, according to a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (paywall). Thirty-five years from now, the world’s biggest economies will look like this:
The list looks like this at the moment:
None of the countries slipping down the list will do so out of stagnation. For example, France, the country that moves down furthest without dropping off—from sixth largest last year to 10th largest by 2050—will nevertheless treble its GDP in the coming 35 years. The total value of the top 10 economies in 2014 amounted to $50.4 trillion; in 2050, the top 10 economies will account for a whopping $318.3 trillion.
Whether or not the rest of the world will grow at the same rate is unclear from the report, but within that top 10, each of the top three—China, the US, and India—will account for more value than the next five countries combined. “This will represent a scale of wealth relative to the rest of the top 10 that is unique in recorded history,” says the report.
As may be expected, the report supports the narrative of a steadily growing Asia. It says that in 2050, 53% of the world’s GDP will be generated in the region, up from 32% in 2014.
And that growth is going to come at the expense of Europe and the Americas’s current domination of global wealth: China’s GDP is expected to overtake the US’s in nominal terms in 2026.