Beaten by Brazil...

...No, not at football but at economics. Brazil today became the sixth-largest economy overtaking the UK in the process. Due to the banking crisis in 2008 and the inevitable recession which followed it the UK has slipped one place to seventh, whilst the top three all remained the same with the US at 1 followed by China and then Japan.  

In more positive news, the same economic league table produced by the centre for economics and business research (CEBR) also predicted that by 2016 the UK’s economy will be bigger than France’s. Despite this however, both countries’ economies are expected to be overtaken by those of Russia and India by 2012.

This economic change is of course all part of a growing change. Not only are countries in Asia and now more recently in South America (in Brazil’s case) overtaking those in the west. But, countries with vital commodities such as oil and food are also doing exceedingly well. This trend is only expected to continue with the oil rich Arab nations economies going from strength to strength.

The implications of these forecasts are unlikely to be too damming for the UK economy though. Brazil has a population of 200million three times the size of the UK’s, this means that proportionate for the UK’s population its economy is still strong. These forecasts are also unlikely to affect the UK’s credit rating which if it were to fall from its triple AAA status would spell disaster for the coalition government.

Overall, after having so recently suffering from the euro zone crisis and the recession I think we can just be thankful that the fall is only one place and not more.