• Brazil Overtakes UK as 6th-Largest Economy

      by
      Steven
      Published on 12-26-2011 09:12 AM
      6 Comments Comments
      Brazil has overtaken the UK to become the world's sixth-largest economy, according to a team of economists. The banking crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession has relegated the UK to seventh place in 2011, behind South America's largest economy, which has boomed on the back of exports to China and the far east.

      Russia and India are expected to benefit from a surge in growth over the next 10 years and push the UK into eighth place. Like most economies, India is struggling with high inflation and slowing growth, but its highly educated workforce and skills in growth areas from IT and services to engineering will push the economy into fifth place. After a decade of selling oil and gas to Europe and other parts of Asia, Russia will be at number four.
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      Comments 6 Comments
      1. Nexus's Avatar
        The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries were always expected to rise quite far on the global market thanks to shifting markets and the decline of western industry, this isn't too surprising. However, having a large economy doesn't always equate to a country being rich. Brazil has -a lot- of economical problems when it comes to education, clamour for social reforms and risk of superheating their purchasing power parity (which isn't the same as GDP per capita).
      1. Washington's Avatar
        Quote Originally Posted by Nexus View Post
        The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries were always expected to rise quite far on the global market thanks to shifting markets and the decline of western industry, this isn't too surprising. However, having a large economy doesn't always equate to a country being rich. Brazil has -a lot- of economical problems when it comes to education, clamour for social reforms and risk of superheating their purchasing power parity (which isn't the same as GDP per capita).
        What will be interesting with Brazil is how they are going to manage a new middle-class, that's the real challenge of any growing country that gains an influx with wealthier citizens: How the country manages and accounts for their social mobility. If the government doesn't make the necessary accommodations (education, infrastructure, goods, welfare) then it risks increased political turmoil and added problem like China is currently handling (in their peculiar compromise/totalitarian way).
      1. Link's Avatar
        Population of the UK - 60 million.
        Population of Brazil - 190 million.
        Nothing else to say really.
      1. Daybreak's Avatar
        Quote Originally Posted by Link View Post
        Population of the UK - 60 million.
        Population of Brazil - 190 million.
        Nothing else to say really.
        It'll be the same kind of thing when China overtakes the US. They just have some many more people.
      1. Aluin's Avatar
        Hardly that surprising. The UK is a service economy that produces nothing, has a generational welfare class proportionally one of the biggest in the world and stacks and stacks of debt. Not to mention an education system that leaves supermarkets needing to retrain school workers in basic math.
      1. Liberty's Avatar
        Now, if only we could do better than 84th country by Human Development Index, that would be something.