How The G7 Should Really Look

Are the current G7 nations truly representative of the most economically powerful countries on the planet?

Niall McCarthy

Are the current G7 nations truly representative of the most economically powerful countries on the planet?

Flags of the G7 countries. Photo: Number 10/Flickr CC BY NC ND 2.0

The G7 is a list of wealthy democracies comprising the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. When they convene next summer, organising country the UK has planned for three additional nations – Australia, India and South Korea – to attend. The initiative is part of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to potentially form a broader group of nations in a move to counter China's rising power. Johnson is travelling to India in January to kick off the initiative.

This development raises the question if the current G7 nations are truly representative of the most economically powerful countries on the planet? The following infographic shows the eight largest economies by share of global GDP between 1980 and 2020. This year, China accounts for the largest share of global GDP, followed by the US. Given its recent economic leaps and bounds, India comes in third, ahead of Japan and Germany. Russia, which was expelled from the G7 in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea, comes sixth. Indonesia rounds off the "real" G7.

This article was first published on Statista.

This article went live on December seventeenth, two thousand twenty, at zero minutes past four in the afternoon.

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