GENEVA, Nov 6: Major developing economies are catching up with rich countries in international trade, according to a league table released by the UN’s trade and development agency on Tuesday.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development said its annual index showed that seven emerging nations -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and South Korea -- were snapping on the heels of the European Union’s new member states.

It said the performance of the seven and several other developing economies in recent years was “remarkable.” China climbed two places to 25th in the latest index based on the 2006 performance, which is headed by the United States, Germany, Denmark and Britain. Singapore gained two places to move fifth while Japan was sixth.

The index measures a country’s capacity to export and to develop its domestic economy by harnessing imports, according to UNCTAD.

Developing countries continue to lag behind on “human capital,” infrastructure, institutional quality, trade performance and social well being, the agency said.

However, some developing economies are achieving scores that are close to industrialised nations on domestic finance, economic stability and environmental sustainability, according to UNCTAD.

Most economies are “relatively comparable” in terms of their openness to trade and the differences in other areas tend to indicate the limits of what trade alone can achieve for their overall development, it added.—AFP