In fact, the global expansion since the turn of the 21st century ranks amongst the highest since the early 1970s. While the global expansion has in general been broad based, the improved growth performance of developing and emerging economies relative to those of developed economies has been most noteworthy.
For example, in 2005, emerging economies accounted for more than half of total world gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing-power parity terms; around 43 per cent of world exports; about 70 per cent of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, half of the world’s energy consumption and around 80 per cent of the growth of oil demand in the past five years.