Various economic forecasts do not show any countries consistently strongly growing faster than a slowed 6-7% GDP growth pace from China. China had mainly 9-14% GDP growth for 40 years and it took that long to get to 25% of the US per capita GDP.
The Conference Board forecasts the economies of China and India will slow from 2014-2019 to 2020-2025 (from 5.9 to 3.5 percent in China and 4.8 to 3.6 percent in India). Overall, emerging economies’ growth will slow to 3.2 percent on average during 2020-2025 from 4.3 percent during 2014-2019.
Citi economic forecast see maybe about 6% GDP growth for India and Indonesia. Those countries with the younger demographics should be at 9-12% GDP growth to get anywhere near the China economic catchup. The higher growth rate and the policy improvements and infrastructure buildout has to be sustained for 2-3 decades at least.
6% GDP growth in the better countries in Asia and Africa is obviously better than doing worse. But this is just beyond stagnation for developing countries with 1-2% population growth. They are doing a little better than treading water against developed countries.
Demographic Clock
In 30-50 years, these countries in Asia and Africa appear on track to lose their demographic advantages of having young and growing populations. They will then have the big problem that China is barely avoiding. Being old and poor as a nation.
The bottom half are not growing robustly economically. The population of Africa is still increasing strongly. Asia population is flattening out. The Asian countries with non-breakout economic growth will be stuck with old and relatively poor populations. It is less than half the world’s population behind China in 2011 but that population is growing.
Economic spillover from China into ASEAN and other nearby countries even with a high speed rail network will not be enough by itself to produce economic miracle countries.
Mexico got a lot of economic boost from tourism from being across the border from the United States. It got to about $20,000 per capita GDP PPP.
This will not be a good thing to happen for 3-5 billion people to be almost stagnant at per capita GDP levels of the more poor South American or middle eastern countries.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.