The UK may overtake France this year to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, behind the US, China, Japan and Germany, according to the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
The UK’s GDP is estimated to reach US$2.828 trillion this year, brushing past France’s US$2.827 trillion even as the gap is within the margin of error, the research group said in a ranking published on Friday.
The IMF predicts that the UK’s GDP will remain slightly smaller than France’s through at least 2017, with an estimate of US$2.706 trillion for this year, versus US$2.885 trillion for France and US$3.664 trillion for Germany.
The European Commission forecasts that the UK’s economy will expand more than twice as fast as the euro region’s next year at a pace of 2.7 percent.
While France and Germany have both suffered output contractions this year, in the UK joblessness fell in the third quarter to the lowest level since 2008 amid robust household spending.
Revisions to China’s GDP mean that it is now forecast to overtake the US next year, compared with 2028 in a ranking published last year, the CEBR said.
Projections published in October by the IMF showed that China’s economy this year overtook the US based on purchasing power parity, which adjusts for price differences between nations.
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