June 10, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 05, 1429

SINGAPORE, June 9: Emerging economies such as China and India are growing faster than the rest of the world but still lack the firepower to offset weaker growth in the US and European Union, Fitch Ratings said on Monday.

The main emerging markets commonly known as BRIC Brazil, Russia, India, and China remain very dependent on exports to the industrialised economies with a combined trade surplus of $500 billion, said James McCormack, head of sovereign ratings in Asia for Fitch.

“The trade flows do not support the emerging markets contributing to offset a recession in the US and weakness elsewhere,” McCormack said at a Fitch conference in Singapore.

Many economists say the United States, the world’s largest economy, is effectively in recession.

Some analysts have seen the rapid economic expansion in India and China as reasons for optimism even if the US and other advanced economies weaken.

But Fitch Ratings argues otherwise.

“They (BRIC economies) are running very large combined trade surpluses in the order of $500 billion... so if there’s weakness in the advanced economies, you are going to see weakness in the emerging markets,” McCormack said.

“The trade flows are going the other way, so the conclusion that we reached is that strong growth in the emerging markets is not really going to help offset weakness in the advanced economies.”

Both India and China still account for a relatively small portion of global imports which means their economies’ influence on international growth is limited, the US ratings agency said.

India only accounts for two percent of the world’s gross domestic product, said McCormack.

“So in some sense, it doesn’t matter how fast India grows and it’s not a very open economy,” he added.

“It’s not really going to contribute to stronger growth in other markets.—AFP