China is advancing rapidly to overtake the United States as the biggest economy in the world, new data shows, with the leader of the world economy since the 19th century possibly losing its top spot to the Asian giant from this year.
"The United States remained the world's largest economy (in 2011), but it was closely followed by China" once data was adjusted for comparison on a standard basis, the World Bank said today.
"India was now the world's third largest economy, moving ahead of Japan."
In parallel, the OECD grouping 34 advanced economies and analysing the same data, said that "the three largest economies in the world were the United States with 17.1 per cent (of global output), China 14.9 per cent and India 6.4 per cent."
In 2011 "OECD countries accounted for 50.0 per cent of the world's gross domestic product" on a comparable basis, down from about 60 per cent in 2005.
"Large emerging economies, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Russian Federation and South Africa, accounted for about 30 per cent of global GDP in 2011, up from about 20 per cent in 2005," the OECD said.
The World Bank published a vast study on the rankings of national wealth creation on the basis of 2011 figures.
The study was carried out with several international organisations to compare national production figures in nominal terms, and also after adjustment to reflect varying buying power, a method knows as purchasing power parities (PPP).
