The slowdown in the Chinese economy has been front and centre for commodities markets for a long time, but today’s its impact is felt on US interest rate policy and equity markets.
China’s official GDP growth is expected to slow to less than 7% in 2015, the slowest pace in 25 years.
But even at this rate of growth the country would be adding some $700 billion to gross domestic product (and that’s excluding Hong Kong).
That’s greater than the size of mainland China’s entire economy in 1994, when growth rates peaked at a stunning 30% year-on-year.
$700 billion is also bigger than Switzerland’s economy and worth almost 2 South Africas and 4 New Zealands.
When compared to the US, the world’s dominant economy for roughly the last 150 years, China’s ascent is even more startling because it took place over such a short time-span.
And on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis China’s catch-up is nothing short of miraculous – in 2005 the percentage was just 43% of the US total.
The table is from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard and I stumbled on it in this article at the Atlantic.
5 Comments
lefty_lemon
Yes, but does anyone believe any of the GDP numbers put out by the Chinese, let alone the US?
TheTruth
The United States gets the trophy for “The Best Looking Horse in the Glue Factory.”
Wayne Waters
What is “astonishing”? When a Country has such a Massive Workforce working for beans what else can the World expect!
Wayne Waters
Stunning increase! Well what else could be said, when a Country has Millions of people working for beans to satisfy a few Million!
Wayne Waters
What else can one expect when a Country has Millions upon Millions of people who work for very, very little. The only other Country in the World that compete against China is India, if they ever get their act together!