Brazilian economy passes Britain, says CEBR

Brazil has gone beyond the UK as the world's sixth biggest economy, a financial research group has said.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said its fresh World Economic League Table illustrated Asian countries moving up and European countries declining back.

The CEBR also forecasted that the British economy would pass France by 2016.

It also said the Eurozone financial system could get smaller 0.6% in 2012 "if the euro problem is solved” or 2% if it is not.

Douglas McWilliams, CEBR chief executive told BBC Radio 4's Today program that Brazil going beyond the UK was part of a rising inclination.

"I think it's part of the large economic transform, where not only are we considering a shift from the west to the east, but we're also seeing that states that produce essential commodities - food and energy and things like that - are doing very well and they're slowly jumping up the economic league table," he said.

A report basis on International Monetary Fund figures published prior this year also said the Brazilian economy would pass the British in 2011.

Brazil has a population of about 200 million, in excess of 3^rd times the population of the UK.

Brazil's economy rise by 7.5% last year, but the government has cut its expansion predict for 2011 to 3.5% after the economy ground to a freeze in the third quarter, with experts censuring the country's upper interest rates and the deteriorating condition in the eurozone.

And although Brazil presently sells more to China than it imports, Brazilian makers have objected that their industries are being damaged by cheap mass-produced commodities from the Asian giant.

The CEBR also said that Russia moved up one spot in its league table to ninth in 2011, and forecasted that it would increase to fourth spot by 2020.

It forecasted that India, the world's 10th largest economy in 2011, would become the fifth biggest by 2020.

And it said European countries would fall down the table, with Germany declining from fourth in 2011 to seventh in 2020, the UK from seventh to eighth, and France from fifth to ninth.

CEBR World Economic League Table
Rank	2011	2020 (forecast)
1	US	US
2	China	China
3	Japan	Japan
4	Germany	Russia
5	France	India
6	Brazil	Brazil
7	UK	Germany
8	Italy	UK
9	Russia	France
10	India	Italy