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| Britain |
| Britain's economy overtaken by France, new figures show |
| 2008-12-08 |
| New figures show that the economic crisis has pushed Britain well down the international league table. The UK is now the sixth largest economy in the world, behind America, Japan, China, Germany and France. Economists said the fall reflected the pound's slump to record lows against the euro. A year ago the UK economy was 8 per cent bigger than that of France, measured by gross domestic product (GDP). Now it is 14 per cent smaller, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). "An overvalued sterling has inflated the UK's claims to be among the top five world economies," said Ben Read, an economist with the CEBR. "The drastic reduction in sterling's value has accelerated the inevitable process of the UK falling down the league table of world economies, as India and Brazil catch up and overtake the UK's national output. "Where the UK's comparative output 'benefited' from sterling's rapid rise up to 2007, we now see the UK overtaken by France, despite both countries seeing a fairly similar economic performance over the past year." At present Britain's GDP is 6 per cent bigger than that of Italy. But according to CEBR, it will drop below Italy's next year. Britain became a bigger economy than Italy in the final months of John Major's government in 1997 and two years later became a bigger economy than France, thanks to strong British growth and a high pound. For most of Tony Blair's time as prime minister, Britain's was the fourth largest economy in the world, before China overtook it in 2006. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 Okay, I'll bite, when is the New York Mafia Commission going to take over BELDERLAND [Belgium-Netherlands], etc. in righteous Mariah Carey indignation??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-12-08 18:59 |
| #1 And exchange fluctuations mean little. The CIA factbook has had the UK and France equal in total purchasing power parity for the last several years w/ the British 7% ahead in per capita PPP. Either way, they are so overtaxed, whatever money left over buys little. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-08 12:20 |