World Bank: Russia Overtakes Germany as 4th Economy

http://russia-insider.com/en/world-bank-russia-overtakes-germany-4th-economy/ri9272

New data released by World Bank says that adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity Russia overtook Germany as world’s 4th economy in 2013

Anatoly Karlin

(The Unz Review)

4 hours ago |

Has probably temporarily slided back to 5th in 2015

This article originally appeared at The Unz Review

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China Overtakes US, Russia Overtakes Germany. At least according to the latest revision of the World Bank’s PPP-adjusted GDP estimates.

China has long been expected to overtake the US economy (one economist dated it to as early as 2010), and there had already been a flurry in the media when the IMF claimed the same thing in December last year.

The World Bank’s new figures just confirm the new reality and scaremongering about a bad night at the irrelevant casino that is the Chinese stockmarket is not going to materially change the fact. Annual growth continues at 7% per year, much the same as South Korea when it was at a similar stage of per capita development in the 1980s.

Russia’s PPP-adjusted GDP actually marginally overtook Germany’s back in 2013, and it managed to maintain this small lead into 2014 despite falling into recession. Of course with GDP expected to fall by around 3% this year, there will almost certainly be a reversal of this, but not by any radical amount – the hystrionical pronunciations of the Western media regardless – and will likely be temporary anyway import substitution really kicks in.

Financial, military, and cultural power are all ultimately functions, if lagging functions, of productive economic power. Although it would be a bad idea to go overboard with it, the spectacle of the same year (give or take) seeing both Russia overtaking the former biggest economy in Europe, and China overtaking the former biggest economy in the world, is really quite symbolic.