Archive - Jan 18, 2009

(quote)

China has become the world's third-largest economy, surpassing Germany and closing rapidly on Japan, according to government and World Bank figures. The Chinese government revised its growth figures for 2007 from 11.9 percent to 13 percent this week, bringing its estimated gross domestic product to $3.4 trillion -- about 3 percent larger than Germany's $3.3 trillion for the same year, based on World Bank estimates. Beijing is expected to release its 2008 GDP figures next week.

Although the world's top economies, the United States and Japan, are in recession, the most pessimistic estimates for China's growth in upcoming years runs about 5 percent. That could allow China's GDP to overtake Japan's, currently $4.3 trillion, within a few years. The U.S. economy, the world's largest, was about $13.8 trillion in 2007.

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