With a clear shift in economic patterns across the globe, India is fast approaching its goal to be one among the largest economies of the world in terms of GDP, reveals a report by Goldman Sachs on the Expanding Middle – the exploding world middle class and falling global inequality. By 2030, incomes in China and India are projected to be close to the global average.
A simple way to see this is to look at the list of the seven largest economies (the ‘true G7’) in 1960, 2007 and 2050. In 1960, the largest economies were all essentially ‘developed’ countries from the higher income groups. By 2007, that has already clearly begun to change, with China in the top seven and Brazil, India and Russia not far behind. But developed countries still dominate the rankings.
From here on, the shift is likely to accelerate. These shifts could be a significant influence on spending patterns, resource use, and environmental and political pressures. In 2050, India would have the 3rd rank on the top seven nations list with an income ranking of 61.
For Graphics, Visit: http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14712240
There are two ways to look at it:
The first is the shift in spending power towards middle-income economies (and away from the richest countries), to a point where they may dominate global spending for the first time in decades, as the largest population countries enter the middle-income group
The second is the shift in spending power towards middle-income people and the explosion of what we think of as a global ‘middle class’ on a scale never seen before. Over the last ten years, we have already seen unprecedented expansion in this group.
Here, Goldman Sachs refers to global middle class as those with incomes between $6,000 and $30,000 per annum. According to the report, shifts in China and India are clearly an important part of the story, though peak growth in China is likely to come much earlier than in India. What is striking, though, is that the Expanding Middle, the narrowing of the global income distribution and the expansion of the global middle class is clear whether or not either or both of these giants is included, at least in the recent past and projected future.
The global income distribution is getting narrower, not wider. So while there is a lot of focus on widening inequality and the embattled middle class in developed countries, globally the opposite is true, the report points out. By 2030, two billion new people may join the world middle class.
The distribution of global incomes could narrow significantly further, even if inequality within some countries remains high or rises further, as middle income countries continue to move through the pack. World could outstrip anything which exists globally for decades, and will peak (at around 20 million per year) around the same time as India. Already by 2020, one third of the new entrants to the world middle class will come from outside China and India. And this percentage could reach half by 2030.
A result of these shifts would be a world that could continue to be dominated by the rise of the BRICs, the N-11 (The Next Eleven - Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam - are identified by Goldman Sachs as having a high potential of becoming the world's largest economies) and a handful of other emerging countries.
The first dimension of the `Expanding Middle’ is already visible. Spending power has already been shifting away from the richest countries towards a growing middle-income group. As a result of these shifts, the purchasing power of middle-income countries is rising and set to rise much more.
This group, which will be dominated by a subset - China, India, Brazil, Egypt, Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, and Vietnam- of the BRICs and N11 will matter more and more for global spending patterns. The second dimension is also visible in the distribution of income across people.
A welcome side effect is that if our growth projections are met, poverty rates should continue to decline sharply. The BRICs continue to emerge as dominant forces in the global economy going forward. The report reveals the BRICs as four of the five largest economies in 2050.
Source: Sify.com
No comments:
Post a Comment