China overtakes UK with Japan and Germany in its sights

[Rajiv]

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Thursday January 26, 2006
Guardian
China's economic juggernaut maintained its breakneck momentum last year with a 9.9% growth surge that almost certainly took it past Britain to become the world's fourth-biggest economy. Despite government efforts to slow the pace of investment and cool an overheated property sector, official statistics released yesterday showed economic expansion in 2005 was only a fraction behind the 10.1% notched up in 2004.
China's GDP is now 18.2 trillion yuan (£1.3 trillion), which - depending on a slight fluctuation in exchange rates - surpasses estimates for Britain and France last year. The United States, Japan and Germany are considerably bigger, but China is catching up fast. While other leading economies would be happy with 4% growth this year, China is expected to more than double that.
Despite the spectacular numbers, analysts believe the government has - if anything - underestimated output. Statistics in this vast, largely unregulated and often secretive country are notoriously unreliable. Last month, officials announced the economy was 16.8% bigger than previously thought because of hidden consumption and unreported income.
As well as dubious measurements, Beijing's ability to control the pace of growth is in doubt. For the past three years, expansion has considerably overshot official targets. Exports - which are more carefully monitored than domestic business activity - jumped by 30% in 2005, despite worsening trade frictions with the US and Europe. Investment in construction and factories leapt 25%, raising fresh concerns of overheating. The falling price of cars and steel suggest there is already over-capacity in these sectors. The majority of China's 1.3 billion population is poor by western standards. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 26 years of near double-digit growth have taken the average income to $1,700, (£950) making the country richer than Morocco, but far behind Europe, Japan and the United States.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,38...108142,00.html

[rajeeb]

India to be 3rd largest economy in 2006

Suman Guha Mozumder in New York | January 25, 2006 12:37 IST

India is expected to become the world's third largest economy this year after the United States and China, a leading economist in the US said on Tuesday.
Dr William T Wilson, chief economist for Keystone India, a Chicago-based firm providing cross-border trade facilitation and asset management services in the US and India, said after significant accelerations in economic growth recently, India's economy is expected to equal or surpass Japan as the world's third largest sometime in 2006.
"The results of liberalising strategic sectors such as telecom, banking, aviation and real estate are now beginning to show," Wilson, a former chief economist for Ernst & Young, said.
Wilson said India's economy measured in PPP (purchasing power parity) terms will eclipse the $4 trillion mark in 2006, making it equal to or greater than Japan's.
Wilson noted that after growing at 8.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent in 2003 and 2004 respectively, India's economy is expected to grow 7.8 per cent in 2005-2006 and then decelerate modestly to seven per cent in 2006-2007.
"Depending upon the direction of energy prices, inflation is expected to run between 5 and 5.5 per cent range in 2006."
Wilson, however, acknowledged that a number of hurdles lie ahead for the Indian economy, including higher energy prices and heavy dependence on petroleum imports.



INDIA RA CHINA KO BICH MA NEPAL KO KE HUDAI CHA ....

[Psoas Major]

nepal will compete to be a no 1 poorest country ......really sad to say but this is the fact ...