China to overtake US as world's largest economy 'this year'

China is poised to overtake the US as the world's largest economy far sooner than expected, according to new statistics.

The Asian giant will overtake the US which has been the largest economy in the world since surpassing the UK in 1872, later this year, according to the World Bank. That is well in advance of earlier estimates that the US would not be overhauled until 2019. In its first update since 2005, the World Bank's International Comparison Programme (ICP) concluded that "money goes further in poorer countries than […] previously thought," prompting an upgrade to the relative size of EM economies. Though it remains well below the US and other economies when measured on a GDP per capita basis, ...