China Takes the Bronze in GDP

Posted on Jan 14, 2009

Flickr.com / PMorgan

Shanghai’s urban landscape shows great development but also hazardous smog.

After reconfiguring its output figures, China has finally found itself on the medal podium for gross domestic product, ousting Germany from its role as third largest economy in the world. China’s economy has grown tenfold in the past 30 years, and its development, while marveled at, worries many environmental, human rights and labor activists.

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The Guardian:

China overtook Germany to become the world’s third largest economy yesterday after revising its figures for output growth. The Chinese economy has grown tenfold in three decades and grew 13% rather than 12% in 2007, Beijing said, putting it behind only the United States and Japan in terms of gross domestic product.

The revision raised the Chinese gross domestic product to 25.7 trillion yuan, the national statistics bureau said, or $3.5tn at 2007 exchange rates. That would be ahead of Germany’s 2007 GDP of €2.4tn, or $3.3tn.

The fact that China has 1.3 billion people, though, means that GDP per head – a typical measure of individual wealth – remains well behind leading economies. Germany’s 85 million people were far ahead of China in this category in 2007 at €28,200 euros per head ($38,800).

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