Back in 2001, soon after the 911 attacks, Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs predicted in their paper “Building Better Global Economic BRICs” that China would overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world, in or around 2027, and the other three ‘BRIC’ countries (India, Russia and Brazil) would be close behind them. I remember the sense of shock and disbelief that this caused at the time.

We’re getting a lot closer to 2027 now and it seems that these predictions are not as crazy as was thought back in 2001, in fact they are remarkably accurate. The latest infographic from Visual Capitalist, Visualising the Coming Shift in Global Economic Power (2006-2036) presents a very interesting view of the future, with India’s rise to third place the stand out. 

Don’t forget that we’re only 22 years into the Asian Century. As was evident back in 2001 when “the weight of the BRICs and especially China in world GDP will grow”, the future looks very different to the past.