The B&R's regional growth potential is world's greatest
- By John Ross
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, May 13, 2017
Growth potential
However, as the average growth rates in countries in the B&R region are much faster than those in either North America or the EU, the growth potential of B&R is much greater than those other centres. As Figure 2 shows, the IMF's data projects an increase in GDP in the B&R region in 2016-2021 of $11.3 trillion – compared to $5.8 trillion in North America and $2.4 trillion in the EU.
Translating this into percentages of world growth, Figure 3 projects the B&R region as accounting for 46 percent of world GDP growth in 2016-2021 – compared to 24 percent in North America, and 10 percent in the EU. Therefore, almost one half of world economic growth in 2016-2021 is projected to occur in the B&R region – compared to less than one quarter in any other major economic center.
The growth potential of the B&R region, in both percentage and absolute terms, is therefore overwhelmingly higher than that of any other economic region – with a projected growth in dollar terms almost twice that of North America, and over four times that of Europe. This means the B&R region provides by a huge margin the most rapidly expanding market in the world.
The global economy in 2021
The reshaping of the world economy over the next five years by the B&R region is clearly the greatest of any part of the world economy. This reshaping of the world economy resulting from the B&R is shown clearly by Figure 4. By 2021, the GDP of the B&R region, calculated from IMF data, will be $29.7 trillion, compared to $21.1 trillion for North America and $18.3 trillion for the EU. In percentage terms the B&R region will be 31.3 percent of world GDP – compared to 27.3 percent for North America and 19.2 percent for the EU.
Conclusion
The above data naturally does not mean there are no problems facing the B&R region. The advantage of North America and the EU is that their per capita GDPs are much higher than the B&R region, and both NAFTA and the EU have an institutional structure which B&R region does not have nor is projected to have at present. The Beijing summit therefore has numerous tasks to work on not only its own projects but building and integrating existing initiatives. Such work is clearly an entire project lasting over a prolonged period.
But the far greater growth performance in the B&R region compared to any other, and therefore the vastly greater market expansion of the B&R region than any other, is a much stronger locomotive of the world economy than other relatively far less rapidly growing centers of the world economy.
The author is Senior Fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
John Ross is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/johnross.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)