News
UK economy to overtake France by 2020
The UK will become the second-largest economy in the EU, overtaking France before 2020 and closing the gap with Germany, according to new projections from economists at PwC.
By 2030 the UK’s economy is likely to have been leapfrogged by India but should remain the sixth-largest economy in the world based on GDP at market exchange rates.
The analysis also looks beyond GDP making use of the ESCAPE index, which combines 20 indicators of performance across economic, social, technological, environmental and political dimensions.
On this basis the UK scored 5th of the major G7 economies in 2013 compared with 3rd place in both 2000 and 2007; the explanation for the markdown is partly the fact that the global financial crisis hit the UK economy relatively hard.
In addition, the UK’s performance is relatively weak on social indicators such as education and income inequality, which PwC claims is higher in the UK than any other G7 nation excepting the US.
