May 18, 2011 - 10:24 AMT
6 major emerging economies to account for half of global growth by 2015

By 2025, six major emerging economies - Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia - will account for more than half of all global growth, and the international monetary system will likely no longer be dominated by a single currency, a new World Bank report says.

As economic power shifts, these successful economies will help drive growth in lower income countries through cross-border commercial and financial transactions.

The report, Global Development Horizons 2011-Multipolarity: The New Global Economy, projects that as a group, emerging economies will grow on average by 4.7 percent a year between 2011 and 2025. Advanced economies, meanwhile, are forecast to grow by 2.3 percent over the same period, yet will remain prominent in the global economy, with the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States all playing a core role in fueling global growth.

“The fast rise of emerging economies has driven a shift whereby the centers of economic growth are distributed across developed and developing economies – it’s a truly multipolar world,” said Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice president for development economics. “Emerging market multinationals are becoming a force in reshaping global industry, with rapidly expanding South-South investment and FDI inflows. International financial institutions need to adapt fast to keep up."

According to the report, emerging economies that used to rely on technological adaptation and external demand to grow will have to make structural changes to sustain their growth momentum through productivity gains and robust domestic demand.