In News:

• India is likely to surpass the United Kingdom in the world’s largest economy rankings in 2019, according to a report by global consultancy firm PwC.

Explained:

• As per the report, while the U.K. and France have regularly switched places owing to similar levels of development and roughly equal populations, India’s climb up the rankings is likely to be permanent.
• The UK was considered to be the world’s fifth largest economy by the IMF in 2018 in US dollar terms at market exchange rates. Based on both the IMF’s forecasts and our main scenario projections, it is likely to be surpassed by two others in 2019: India and possibly also France. As per the IMF data, in 2018, India is the seventh largest economy with a GDP of $2.69 trillion, preceded by France at the sixth position with a GDP of $2.79 trillion.
• The UK, which is facing Brexit blues, had the fifth largest GDP of $2.81 trillion, which is about $119 billion more than that of India, the data showed.
• The US was the world’s largest economy with a size of $20.51 trillion, followed by China ($13.46 trillion) at the second place in 2017. Japan ($5.07 trillion) and Germany ($4.02 trillion) were at the third and fourth places, respectively
• PwC’s Global Economy Watch report projects real GDP growth of 1.6% for the U.K., 1.7% for France and 7.6% for India in 2019. “India and France are likely to surpass the U.K. in world’s largest economy rankings in 2019, knocking it from the fifth to seventh place.