10:06 28 December 2013
According to Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), the UK will overtake Germany by 2030 and could become Europe’s largest economy. This, according to the centre, is due to UK’s population growth as an aid to economic acceleration. Also, "lesser dependence on other European economies" would also aid progress, as well as "relatively low taxes by European standards." CEBR report echoes the recent confidence of other business groups such as the British Chambers of Commerce, which predicted that UK economy will surpass its pre-recession peak in 2014.
CEBR also predicted that China will overtake US in 2028 while the UK will overall perform second best of all advanced economies. However, India and Brazil are still expected to stay on top.
Meanwhile, France is expected to be one of the worst performing of the Western economies and will be overtaken by the UK by 2018. Aside from slow growth due to high taxation, the general issues of Eurozone economies are expected to dampen France’s economic growth in the next 15 years.