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October 06, 2004
Britain is seventh not fourth largest economy
In 2003, the World Bank listed the United Kingdom as the world’s fourth economy by US dollar GDP, ahead of France, Italy, China, India etc.
This has been much trumpeted by British politicians, despite the implausibility of our little island (ranking 21st in the world by population) having a larger economy than China or india.
Using the more accurate and realistic PPP (purchasing power parity) GDP method, Britain is in fact number seven, behind the USA, China, Japan, India, Germany and France, and just ahead of Italy, Russia and Brazil. The top five are all far larger than Britain.
This is something that we need to pick up on. Spurious pride in Britain’s ‘fourth largest economy’ is not something the SNP should be encouraging.
The World Bank publish both kinds of calculation:
Posted by Simon Holledge at October 6, 2004 12:19 AM