Washington: By the year 2050, India is projected to become the third largest economy in the world, behind China and the United States, in that order, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs.

China, India, Russia and Brazil could outrank the combined economic might of today's Group of Six - the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the UK, by the middle of this century, says the report quoted by the 'Wall Street Journal'.

"The implication is that the economic and financial power is going to shift away from us," says Dominic Wilson, a senior Goldman economist and one of the authors of the report, which sees the US as No 2 by the year 2050, sandwiched between China as No 1 and India as No 3.

In making its forecasts, Goldman doesn't focus on the four developing nations' current economic-growth rates, even though these certainly haven't been too shabby. Instead, using demographic projections and a model of capital accumulation and productivity trends, it calculates likely gains in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and income per capita, and currency movements.

Over the next 50 years, the model assumes that GDP will rise at an average annual clip of 3.8%in Brazil, nearly 6% in India, 4.7% in China, and 3.2% in Russia, versus the US' projected 1.7%. It also assumes that the value of the four nations' currencies will rise.

PTI