Standard Chartered sees Egypt as one of world’s top 10 economies in 2030: Egypt will be one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2030, Standard Chartered said, according to Bloomberg (watch, runtime 01:07). The long-term forecast by Standard Chartered, which uses purchasing power parity exchange rates and nominal GDP to predict the world’s GDP rankings, placed Egypt in 7th place, ahead of Russia, Japan and Germany. China topped the list, followed by India and the US, respectively. Asia’s share of global GDP could be as large as the US and Europe combined by 2030, at 35%. As many as seven of the world’s top 10 economies in 2030 may be currently classified as emerging markets.

Other key observations include:

• Slowed reform momentum in EMs drags down productivity growth;
• Dusk closing in on the quantitative easing era may put pressure on economies to reform and revive productivity trends;
• A majority of the world’s population will enter the middle class by 2020;
• The growth of the middle class should help counter the rapid population aging trend in many countries.