Dutch economy expected to slide in world ranking

The Netherlands top all small ones

LONDON – The list of largest economies in the world is about to change. The Netherlands, which has basically ranked fifteenth or sixteenth on the list for decades, is expected to slip to a more modest ranking as larger countries are pushing themselves up the ladder.

In 2015, the Netherlands is expected to rank eighteenth, followed by two other small countries, Switzerland and Sweden, on the list of 20. Compiled from International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations (UN), and World Bank (WB) projections, the 2015 list of the twenty largest no longer shows Belgium but has Indonesia and Turkey ranking ahead of the Dutch.

By 2050 the Dutch are expected to have dropped to a still very respectable 24th place, forecasts the research department at UK’s HSBC Bank. Additionally, the study suggests that China will overtake the United States in the next forty years as the most important economy, followed by India, Japan and Germany. China replaced Japan as second largest in 2010, where the latter was positioned since 1980 when the Soviet Union started to slide down the list. In 1995, Russia ranked below the Netherlands. In 2015 it is expected to rank eighth.

By mid-century, the HSBC study anticipates Great Britain, Brazil, Mexico, France and Canada to be among the top 10 economies.