India to become world's 5th largest economy by 2020: Report

Moving past the global economic powerhouses like the UK, Germany and France, the Indian economy would become the world's fifth largest by 2020 -- a major jump from its 10th rank currently, a report has said.

"India, the world's 10th biggest economy in 2011, would become the fifth largest by 2020," economic think-tank Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has said in its latest World Economic League Table report.

According to the latest data available with the World Bank, India was the world's 9th largest economy at the end of 2010 with a size of USD 1.73 trillion (based on the GDP figures at the current US dollar rates).

The World Bank data puts the US as the world's largest economy (USD 14.6 trillion) for 2010, followed by China, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Brazil, Italy, India and Canada in the top ten. However, the 2010 figures were not available for all the countries, including Russia.

As per the CEBR projections, the US would remain the world's largest economy, followed by China, Japan, Russia and India in the top five in 2020. The CEBR report has named the US as the world's biggest for 2011, followed by China, Japan, Germany and France in the top five positions.

As per a report published on the website of British media giant BBC, CEBR has said that Brazil has become the world's sixth largest economy, pushing the UK to seventh position.

The report said that the UK would lose further ground in the world rankings, but would score better than France in 2020. While Brazil would remain at 6th slot and China at second in 2020 also, Russia and India would move higher, as per the CEBR projections reported by the BBC.

As per the CEBR forecast, India would be followed by Brazil (6th), Germany (7th), UK (8th), France (9th) and Italy (10th) in the top-ten league. As per the report, CEBR's chief Douglas McWilliams told BBC Radio 4 that Brazil overtaking the UK was part of a growing trend.

"I think it's part of the big economic change, where not only are we seeing a shift from the west to the east, but we're also seeing that countries that produce vital commodities - food and energy and things like that - are doing very well and they're gradually climbing up the economic league table," the report quoted McWilliams as saying.