The current 10 largest economies, according to 2008 data from the International Monetary Fund, are the United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Russia, Spain and Brazil. "These projects suggest that China could be the largest economy in the world as early as 2020 and is likely to be some way ahead of the US by 2030," John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PWC, said in the report.
"India could grow even faster than China after 2020, however, and will also move rapidly up the global GDP (gross domestic product) rankings" because of its younger and faster growing population as opposed to China, he added. The report also pointed to an increasing share of global GDP taken up by China and India, compared to the United States and the European Union.
The proportion in 2010 will be 20 percent for the US, 21 percent for the EU, 13 percent for China and five percent for India, PWC said. But by 2030 that will have changed to 16 percent for the US, 15 percent for the EU, 19 percent for China and nine percent for India, it added. Jim O'Neill, chief global economist for US investment bank Goldman Sachs, forecast last November that China will overtake the United States by 2027 - 14 years earlier than a previous Goldman Sachs forecast of 2041 made in 2003.