US-based banking giant Citigroup has listed Vietnam as one of the top 11 countries with highest growth rate and most attractive investment destination over the next 40 years.

A recent report, written by Citigroup’s economists Willem Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari, has listed Vietnam as the world’s leading growth engine by 2050 among 11 countries called Global Growth Generators or 3G countries.

They include Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Vietnam scores 0.86 on the 3G index to top the list, followed by China with 0.81, India (0.71), Indonesia (0.70), Mongolia (0.63), the Philippines (0.60), Iraq (0.58), Bangladesh (0.39), Egypt (0.37), Sri Lanka (0.33), and Nigeria (0.25).

“Vietnam’s expected growth rate of real per capita GDP between 2010 and 2050 is 6.4 percent, according to our projections,” said the report. “This growth is expected to come from a very low base – Vietnam starts from the 55th position in our rankings in the real per capita GDP rankings with a 2010 figure of $3,108.”

Vietnam’s population is expected to increase from 89 million in 2010 to 112 million in 2050, according to the report. Its working age population is expected to grow until about 2035, when it is projected to be 17.4 percent larger than in 2010.

For poor countries having large young populations, fast growth will be easier achieved by creating a market economy and investing in human resource training, said the report.

According to the 87-page report, China will overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world by 2020, and then will be overtaken by India 30 years later.

Asia and Africa will be the fastest growing regions, driven by population and income per capita growth, followed by the Middle East, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and finally the advanced nations nowadays.

Western industrial countries, which accounted for 41 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) as of last year, will see slow growth and drop by 18 percent by 2050.

The world’s GDP will increase from US$72,000 billion in 2010 to US$380,000 billion by 2050, growing an average of 4.6 percent by 2030 and 3.8 percent between 2030 and 2050, said the report.

Source: Tuoi Tre