“The emerging world’s catch-up potential is unlikely to slacken before the end of the decade,” said Bart van Ark, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of The Conference Board. “Yet while emerging economies are clearly driving global growth, they also host its biggest downside risk. For example, the emergence of uncontrolled inflation or a mishandling of corrections to overvalued assets in China or India could reduce global growth for 2010-2020 by as much as 2 percentage points.”
Among other key findings:
- China may have a larger GDP (PPP-converted) than the United States by 2012.
- India will double its share of global output between 2000 and 2020, but its overall impact on global growth remains much smaller than China’s.
- Western Europe (the original 15 EU member states) will stay at modest 1.5 percent growth in 2011. Germany, the Nordic countries and Benelux will perform at the higher end (above 2 percent); the United Kingdom and France will be in the middle range (1.5-2 percent); most of Southern Europe and Ireland will see growth of less than 1 percent or may even contract.
- Growth in China will moderate only slightly going into 2011. India will add almost a full percentage point to its growth rate.
