Читать книгу The Emerging Markets Handbook - Pran Tiku - Страница 31

In the simplest terms, demographics are people. Human capital at work is the very lifeblood of emerging nations. When the demographic conditions are right, it can completely transform a nation, resulting in prosperity and well-being for decades to come. Aside from the hard numbers – total population, population growth and average age, to name a few – there are other, less quantitative, factors at play when it comes to demographic advantages. Nations with populations that place a high value on hard work and competitiveness can often overcome what would appear (by the numbers anyway) to be demographic weaknesses. Thus, favourable demographics will never be directly correlated to future growth. It would be unwise and simplistic, for example, to conclude that Nigeria has a brighter economic future than Japan because of its relatively young population.

That said, the fact remains that strong demographics have an extremely high correlation with rising incomes and urbanisation, where low productivity agrarian work is substituted for more productive endeavours in technology and industry.

More so than anywhere else, the sheer power of demographics is on full display in the nations of China and India. A report by consulting firm McKinsey titled ‘Winning the $30 Trillion Decathlon’ points to several mind-blowing figures regarding these two emerging economies. In the first industrial revolution, they note that it took Great Britain approximately 150 years to double their GDP per person. The second industrial revolution, which took place in the United States, required 50 years to double GDP per person. In both cases the two countries started out with a population of around 10 million. The latest revolution in China and India, which started in the late 1980s, took 12 to 16 years to double GDP per person, with a population of close to a billion. The numbers speak for themselves. The latest revolution was a thousand times stronger than the first industrial revolution and it’s just getting started.

In that same report, McKinsey states that in 1990 there were roughly 1 billion people around the world earning more than $10 per day, with the bulk of those people residing within the US, Europe and Japan. Over the last 20 years, however, the progress of urbanisation and market-friendly trade policies, including membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO), has caused that number to double to 2 billion people, with the expansion coming predominantly from emerging markets.

Projections by McKinsey suggest that by 2025 this number will swell to 4.2 billion people, on the back of emerging market growth. The same study projects that consumption will rise to $30 trillion annually (MGI Research), up from 12 trillion in 2010. In 15 years, it is projected that 60% of 1 billion households will earn more than $20,000 per year and most of them will be living in emerging market countries.

Projections like this can seem almost like an abstraction, like they will never come to fruition. But consider the analysts who, several decades ago, predicted that China’s consumer economy would one day trump that of the United States. That is no longer an abstract idea or prediction, it’s already happened. Other statistics that would have seemed absurd a decade ago are now reality. Consider that:

 China has already overtaken the United States as the largest consumer market in the world.

 Half of the world’s global internet users are in emerging markets.

 Brazil’s social networking usage is the second highest in the world.

 15 cities in Africa have 60% ownership of internet capable smartphones.

While surprising to many, those who understand the nature of demographics will not be shocked by these current developments, nor developments predicted for the near-term future. Over the next 15 years, for instance, it is estimated by McKinsey that 440 emerging market cities will generate about half of global GDP and 40% of global consumption. During that timeframe, it’s expected that 65 million people – the equivalent of the combined population of London, New York and Tokyo – will move into the cities every year. Again, this is just the beginning.