Emerging markets: Redrawing the world map - FT.com

Emerging markets: Redrawing the world map - FT.com:



"When Matteo Ricci, the Italian 16th century Jesuit missionary, travelled to China to win converts to his faith, he found that his European maps — which showed China relegated to the cartographical margins — failed to endear him to his hosts. So he redrew them. The resulting world map of 1602 placed China at its centre, an accommodation that is said to have helped him win influence among the Middle Kingdom’s elite.



Ricci’s revisions were made on woodcuts and paper. Now, commentators say, it is the world’s mental map that is in dire need of an overhaul, particularly when it comes to the practice of categorising countries as “emerging” or “developed” markets.



The current economic hierarchy, which places emerging nations at the periphery and developed markets at the core of world affairs, no longer accurately describes a world in which EM countries contribute a bigger share to global gross domestic product than their developed counterparts, when measured by purchasing power parity. Nor does the capacious category, which lumps together countries of such diverse economic strengths as China and the Czech Republic, serve to illuminate crucially different realities between these nations."



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