Brazil to overtake UK as sixth-largest economy

London, Nov.1 (ANI): Brazil will overtake the United Kingdom to become the world's sixth biggest economy this year, according to new projections.

Brazil grew by 7.5pc last year after comfortably weathering the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.

According to The Telegraph, the Latin American giant's GDP for 2011 is expected to hit 2.44 trillion dollars compared with 2.43 trillion dollars for the UK, the latest monthly forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) show.

This will see Brazil, which last year overtook Italy to become the world's seventh biggest economy, move up one more place to sixth with the UK falling to seventh.

Robert Wood, the EIU's chief economist on Brazil, said the country's surge up the table owed much to a growing consumer class and a booming trade relationship with China, based on the Asian giant's need for commodities such as soy and iron ore.

The forecasts suggest that Brazil's economy will be bigger than any in Europe by 2020 when it overtakes Germany to become the fifth biggest globally - after China, by then the world's leading economy measured in dollars, the US, India and Japan.

The UK will find itself placed ninth in the global league table in 2020, predicts EIU, with Germany sixth, Russia seventh and France eighth. (ANI)