The Daily Telegraph reports that the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) is forecasting that the downturn and China’s economic resilience will mean the combined contribution from the US, Canada and Europe to world GDP will be 49.4pc in 2009, down from 52pc in 2008. CEBR said prior to the financial crisis Western world GDP was not expected to fall below 50pc until 2015.
“The recession has brought forward the time when the non-Western economies produce more than half of world GDP, for the first time since the middle of the 19th century. We had expected this to happen, but not quite so soon. The West will have to start to get to grips with the fact that we are no longer dominant and cannot expect to have things our own way,” said Douglas McWilliams, CEBR’s chief executive.
The think-tank predicts the West will account for just 45pc of the world economy by 2012, and expects global GDP to fall by 1.4pc this year, the first decline since 1946.
