China: The World’s Largest Economy

By Staff Reporter | Oct 08, 2014 03:33 PM EDT

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China's socialist market economy is known as the world's second largest economy by nominal gross domestic product after the United States. But now, the Chinese economy surpassed the Americans as the world's largest in terms of purchasing power.

As per Newsweek, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which measures nations in terms of market exchange rates and purchasing power parity (PPP), found that the Chinese economy contributes the most to global development.

Financial Times' Chris Giles highlighted China's takeover and alerted Business Insider in April that it was bound to happen. According to IMF's latest World Economic Outlook, China's gross domestic product is worth $17.6 trillion, which was adjusted for the nation's relatively low cost of living, compared with $17.4 trillion for the United States.

China is not only the world's largest economy but also the fastest-growing major economy globally with growth rates averaging 10 percent over the past 30 years. China plays a significant role in international trade and has increasingly engaged in trade organizations and treaties in recent years. But the nation has also been criticized for unfair trade practices, including fake currency devaluation, intellectual property theft, protectionism and local favoritism.

Huffington Post Business explains the fact that China is manipulating its currency to be worth much less than the dollar, it helps to make Chinese stuff cheaper compared than the US on the global market.

"In the spring, the International Comparison Program calculated new exchanges rates for comparing output of different economies. At the time it suggested that China was the world's largest economy because money went significantly further in China than previously thought. Now it is official," the Financial Times reported.

As China's economic importance has grown, so has the attention to the structure and health of the economy. In mid-2014, China announced that it was taking steps to boost their economy, which at the time was running at a rate 7.4 percent per annum, but was decelerating. Chinese strategic plans to improve their economy included: building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports, to create a new economic belt alongside the Yangtze River.

According to global information provider IHS Inc., China will be the world's largest economy in 2024. The Chinese economy is expected to rebalance toward more rapid growth consumption, which will help the structure of its domestic economy.

China is a global core for business, and is both largest manufacturing economy in the world and the largest exporter of goods. China is also the world's fastest growing consumer market and second largest importer of goods. But with these data, the US still maintains its supremacy in raw terms not adjusted for purchasing power by $6.5 trillion.

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