Britain's long-term economic growth will beat the nation's rivals to be the best in the G7 despite the challenges posed by Brexit, according to a new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The professional services giant's new world economy study examines how the global order will change by 2050 and predicts that the UK will only move down one place in the list, as opposed to the more drastically waning powers of its EU neighbours.
Britain is currently ranked ninth and could round off the top 10 by 2050. In contrast, Germany would fall from fifth to ninth, France is predicted to drop out of the top 10 and Italy out of the top 20 as the big European nations are overtaken by faster growing emerging economies like Mexico (the sole newcomer in the top 10 by 2050), Turkey and Vietnam.
PwC believes the UK will actually be the fastest-growing economy in the G7, also outperforming the US, Canada and Japan.
While Brexit will have a certain negative impact, the majority of that would be felt by 2020, before its flexible economy and relatively large working age population would help it outperform its peers.
The 32 countries involved were ranked by their purchasing power parity (PPP), which determines economic productivity and standards of living.
China, the US and India will make up the top three, with India's PPP swelling from a 2016 level of $8.721 trillion to a huge $44.128 trillion by 2050.
Meanwhile, Indonesia will leapfrog Germany, Russia and Brazil. Six of the top seven nations will be emerging economies.
PwC's chief economist John Hawksworth said:
"Emerging economies offer great opportunities for business – the numbers in our report make it clear that failure to engage with these markets means missing out on the bulk of economic growth we expect to see in the world economy between now and 2050.
"To succeed, businesses will need to adopt strategies with the right mix of flexibility and patience to ride out the short-term economic and political volatility that is a normal feature of emerging markets as they mature.
"Growth is expected to be driven largely by emerging market and developing countries, with the E7 economies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey growing at an annual average rate of 3.5% over the next 34 years, compared to an average of just 1.6% for the advanced G7 nations of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan."
The world economy should double in size by 2042, "growing at an average annual rate of just over 2.5% between 2016 and 2050." It will face a number of challenges, including ageing populations and climate change.
