ICP Results Announced

The International Comparison Program (ICP) of the World Bank recently released data showing the world economy produced goods and services worth almost $55 trillion in 2005. Almost 40 percent of the world’s output came from developing economies.

Major findings

• Twelve economies account for more than two-thirds of the world’s output. Seven of them are high-income economies (United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and, Spain), and five are developing or transitional economies (China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico). The five largest developing economies account for more than 20 percent of global output and over 27 percent of the world expenditures for investment purposes.
• China participated in the survey program for the first time ever and India for the first time since 1985. These results are more statistically reliable estimates of the size and price levels of both economies.The new, improved methods rank China as the world’s second largest economy with almost 10 percent of world GDP and India follows as the fifth largest with over 4 percent of the world total.
• Overall, the 2005 benchmark results show that the size of the world economy measured in PPP terms is smaller than previous estimates. The Asian and African non oil exporting economies are one-third and one-fourth smaller, respectively. However, Asia still accounts for over 20 percent of the world’s output. Estimates of China’s GDP are 40 percent below the results of previous measures.

Go to the ICP website.

For more, similar data go to:

The World Development Indicators 2007.