China Passes Germany With 3rd-Highest GDP

[Joanne98]

Source: WP


BEIJING, Jan. 14 -- China leapfrogged over Germany to become the world's third-largest economy in 2007, sooner than predicted, underscoring how quickly the concentration of global economic power has shifted.

While earlier estimates had put growth of China's gross domestic product that year at 11.9 percent, revised figures released by the government statistics bureau Wednesday show that its economy actually expanded by 13 percent to $3.38 trillion. That compares with Germany's 2007 GDP of $3.32 trillion.

"It was inevitable," said Ting Lu, a Merrill Lynch economist based in Hong Kong.

Whether the growth trajectory will continue, however, has been complicated by the global recession, which has already prompted massive layoffs and waves of company closures, especially across southeastern China, the heartland of its export-driven economy. If China were to continue to grow at its current rate, economists say it could surpass Japan in as soon as three years and the United States in 18 years to become the world's No. 1 economy.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/14/AR2009011401456.html?hpid=sec-world

[Earth_First]

1. Contradictory threads running on this issue on LBN

Just curious which thread to listen to...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3690987

This thread percieves China as on the verge of imploding, however this OP claims that China's GDP grew by 13 percent.

[Texano78704]

2. It's amazing...

how things can change in a New York minute.

[fasttense]

3. This is rather strange.

According to the Human Development report from the UN the US is 12 in per capita GDP and China is 81. France and Switzerland beat us out.

2007/2008 Human Development Report
GDP per capita (PPP US$)

HDI Rank Country 2005
1 Iceland 36,510
2 Norway 41,420
3 Australia 31,794
4 Canada 33,375
5 Ireland 38,505
6 Sweden 32,525
7 Switzerland 35,633
8 Japan 31,267
9 Netherlands 32,684
10 France 30,386
11 Finland 32,153
12 United States 41,890
13 Spain 27,169
14 Denmark 33,973
15 Austria 33,700
16 United Kingdom 33,238
17 Belgium 32,119
18 Luxembourg 60,228
19 New Zealand 24,996
20 Italy 28,529
21 Hong Kong, China (SAR) 34,833
22 Germany 29,461
23 Israel 25,864
24 Greece 23,381
25 Singapore 29,663
26 Korea (Republic of) 22,029
27 Slovenia 22,273
28 Cyprus 22,699
29 Portugal 20,410
30 Brunei Darussalam 28,161
31 Barbados 17,297
32 Czech Republic 20,538
33 Kuwait 26,321
34 Malta 19,189
35 Qatar 27,664
36 Hungary 17,887
37 Poland 13,847
38 Argentina 14,280
39 United Arab Emirates 25,514
40 Chile 12,027
41 Bahrain 21,482
42 Slovakia 15,871
43 Lithuania 14,494
44 Estonia 15,478
45 Latvia 13,646
46 Uruguay 9,962
47 Croatia 13,042
48 Costa Rica 10,180
49 Bahamas 18,380
50 Seychelles 16,106
51 Cuba 6,000
52 Mexico 10,751
53 Bulgaria 9,032
54 Saint Kitts and Nevis 13,307
55 Tonga 8,177
56 Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 10,335
57 Antigua and Barbuda 12,500
58 Oman 15,602
59 Trinidad and Tobago 14,603
60 Romania 9,060
61 Saudi Arabia 15,711
62 Panama 7,605
63 Malaysia 10,882
64 Belarus 7,918
65 Mauritius 12,715
66 Bosnia and Herzegovina 7,032
67 Russian Federation 10,845
68 Albania 5,316
69 Macedonia (TFYR) 7,200
70 Brazil 8,402
71 Dominica 6,393
72 Saint Lucia 6,707
73 Kazakhstan 7,857
74 Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 6,632
75 Colombia 7,304
76 Ukraine 6,848
77 Samoa 6,170
78 Thailand 8,677
79 Dominican Republic 8,217
80 Belize 7,109
81 China 6,757
82 Grenada 7,843
83 Armenia 4,945
84 Turkey 8,407
85 Suriname 7,722
86 Jordan 5,530
87 Peru 6,039
88 Lebanon 5,584
89 Ecuador 4,341
90 Philippines 5,137
91 Tunisia 8,371
92 Fiji 6,049
93 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 6,568
94 Iran (Islamic Republic of) 7,968
95 Paraguay 4,642
96 Georgia 3,365
97 Guyana 4,508
98 Azerbaijan 5,016
99 Sri Lanka 4,595
100 Maldives 5,261
101 Jamaica 4,291
102 Cape Verde 5,803
103 El Salvador 5,255
104 Algeria 7,062
105 Viet Nam 3,071

http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/5.html

[brentspeak]

4. Those numbers are meaningless today

Iceland, for example, has just seen its entire economy collapse within the past few months.