China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2028

In 2028 China will certify its transformation into the world's largest economy, five years earlier than previously expected, as a result of the "skill" with which the Asian giant has managed the coronavirus crisis and its greater relative impact on the large Western economies, according to the latest edition of the World Economic League, produced by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CBRE).

"The skilful management of the pandemic and the impact on long-term growth in the West implies an improvement in China's relative economic performance, which will surpass the US economy in 2028, five years earlier than we thought last year", stress the heads of the study, who anticipate an annual growth in China's GDP of 5.7% between 2021 and 2025, while in the following five years it will moderate to 3.9% annually.

China will thus overtake the United States at the top of the ranking in 2028 and will no longer leave first place for the whole of the forecast horizon, which runs until 2035, while the US economy will remain in second place in the ranking, although threatened by the rise of India, which will close 2020 as the sixth largest economy in the world but will become the third largest from 2030 onwards.

According to the CBRE's forecasts, by 2035 the shift in the balance of the world economy will have been consolidated with the rise of other BRIC economies such as Indonesia, which will climb to eighth position (15th in 2020); Brazil, which in 2035 will be the ninth world economy (12th); and Russia, which will reach tenth position (11th).

Among the major Western economies, Germany will lose its current fourth position by the end of the decade and from 2030 onwards will be the fifth world economy, while the United Kingdom will fall from 2025 to sixth position, one below its current position, despite the uncertainty of the impact of the Brexit. On its side, France will manage to keep the seventh position for the whole period.

In the case of Spain, which the authors point out as one of the economies hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, forecasts suggest that it will remain in fourteenth position until the middle of the decade, when it will fall to 15th place in the World Economic League, although by 2035 it could climb to 13th place.

"Cebr does not expect the Spanish economy to return to pre-pandemic production levels until 2024. This would represent a longer period of recovery than neighbouring France and Portugal," the study's authors point out.

However, despite this adverse impact, Spain would not only remain the world's largest Spanish-speaking economy in 2035, but would also consume the 'surprise' over Italy, which would start from eighth position in 2020 but would gradually lose economic weight worldwide, falling to tenth place in 2025 and thirteenth in 2030 to reach fourteenth place in 2035, just behind Spain.