A report by the economics and policy team of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s largest multi-national professional services firms, predicted that Egypt’s economy will surpass Canada’s by 2050.
“By 2050, emerging economies such as Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico are likely to be larger than the UK and France, while Pakistan and Egypt could overtake Italy and Canada,” said PwC in its report.
The report, titled “The Long View: How will the global economic order change by 2050?” has listed 32 countries using their projected global gross domestic product by purchasing power parity (PPP).
Macroeconomists use PPP to find out the economic productivity and living standards in countries over a certain period of time.
“We project that the world economy could more than double in size by 2050, assuming broadly growth-friendly policies and no major global civilization-threatening catastrophes,” said the report.
However, the report also stated that the world economy will witness a slowdown over the next few decades.
PwC projects “annual global economic growth to average around 3.5% over the next 4 years to 2020, slowing down to 2.7% for 2021-2030, 2.5% for the decade after that, and 2.4% for 2041-2050.”
The report explained that this will happen due to advanced economies experiencing a significant decline in their working-age populations.
PwC warns that while emerging countries may benefit from strong population growth, their progress and development will depend on being able to generate enough jobs for youth in their countries.
According to the projected GDP rankings (at PPPs) by PwC for 2030 and 2050, Egypt will jump from no. 21 in 2016 to no. 19 in 2030 to its highest, no. 15, by 2050, of the 32 countries listed.
The projected rankings of economies based on GDP at PPPs show Egypt at 1,105 GDP at PPPs in 2016 jumping to 2,049 GDP at PPPs in 2030 to an all-time high, 4,333 GDP at PPPs by 2050.
A table showing breakdown of the components of average real GDP growth (2016-2050) projects Egypt at 1.4% average population growth per annum, 2.6% average real growth per capita per annum, and 4.1% average GDP growth per annum (in domestic currency).
Another table on the report, highlighting GDP at market exchange rate (MER) rankings, shows Egypt at no. 25 in 2016, at 340 GDP at market exchange rate MER, projected to jump to no. 23 in 2030 at 908 GDP at MER, and reaching 2,990 GDP at MER by 2050 making it reach no. 18 on the rankings.
