FRANKFURT, March 3: China and other emerging economies will soon catch up or even overtake the leading western industrialised nations as the world’s biggest economies by 2050, a study showed on Friday.

While the United States was likely to hold on to the number one position by the middle of the 21st century, China was likely to follow closely as the world’s second biggest economy, a study published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) here showed.

The current number two and three economies — Japan and Germany respectively — would slip in the rankings.

Japan would fall behind India and Brazil to become the fourth biggest economy in the world, while Germany would fall even further to rank number eight behind Mexico, the consultancy firm estimated.

Demographic changes would play a key role in the redistribution of economic power around the world. While the birth rate was low in Germany, the number of people of a working age was rising in almost all developing nations aside from China and Russia.

For the current Group of Seven (G7) richest nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US — the development would bring both advantages and disadvantages.—AFP