PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multinational professional services network headquartered in London, has projected that Pakistan’s economy will become the 16th largest by 2050 based on its gross domestic product at purchasing power parity. A report ‘The Long View — How Will the Global Economic Order Change by 2050’, released by the service earlier this month, also projected a number of emerging economies such as Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico, which will overtake UK and France, and Pakistan will overtake Italy and Canada, which are currently ranked at 12th and 17th places in the global GDP index. According to the report, the new players are taking the centre stage, including Pakistan which will climb to 20th place with $1.87trillion gross domestic product by 2030 and to 16th place with $4.2trillion by 2050 from the current 24th place with GDP at PPP amounting to $988billion. However, according to real market exchange rate, the country’s economy will rise from the current $284billion to $776 GDP by 2030 and to $2.8trillion by 2050. Report says that gross domestic product at purchasing power parity offers better scale to assess the volume of goods and services produced by the economy.
The gross domestic product at real market exchange rate provides a scale to judge value of goods and services produced by an economy. The report dubs China as the largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity and has overtaken the United States. India, which is currently stands in third place, is projected to overtake the United States by 2050. France will not be able to hold its current position as the 10th largest economy of the world and the UK will fall to 10th place. Indonesia will be the fourth largest economy of the world by 2050.
The global economy would be more than double by 2050. The report is based on the assumption that the emerging markets will introduce growth-friendly policies and will continue to work as the engine of growth for the world economy. The plus point of Pakistani economy is that it is resilient and the worst part is that it has a hostile country in the east. Islamabad wants business and trade relations with India and other countries in the region. However, Pakistan cannot do it alone. The economies in South Asia are changing and sincere efforts are required to maintain peace and enhance volume of trade within the regional countries.
