Thursday, August 21, 2003
The updated CIA World Factbook
Anytime I want quick reference on any country (that I don't have to pay for), it is the CIA World Factbook that I turn to. I just noticed that the Factbook has updated itself and for most countries, the information was updated last in August, 2003. I checked out India, China and the U.S. just to get a quick sense of what has been updated.
Interesting to note the economic numbers, even if its in PPP terms. The U.S. economy (at $10.4 trillion) is twice the size of the Chinese economy ($5.7 trillion) which itself is more than twice as large as the Indian economy ($2.6 trillion). Of course, in real dollar terms, the U.S. economy would remain as is, China would drop to just above $1 trillion, while India would be around half that. Same is the case with per-capita incomes.
Strangely enough, the numbers that havent been updated are the telecoms numbers -- which are probably the easiest numbers to acquire. China's mobile market is at 65 million while India's is just above 2 million while the true numbers as of today are 200 million plus and 16 million plus respectively.
Interesting to note the economic numbers, even if its in PPP terms. The U.S. economy (at $10.4 trillion) is twice the size of the Chinese economy ($5.7 trillion) which itself is more than twice as large as the Indian economy ($2.6 trillion). Of course, in real dollar terms, the U.S. economy would remain as is, China would drop to just above $1 trillion, while India would be around half that. Same is the case with per-capita incomes.
Strangely enough, the numbers that havent been updated are the telecoms numbers -- which are probably the easiest numbers to acquire. China's mobile market is at 65 million while India's is just above 2 million while the true numbers as of today are 200 million plus and 16 million plus respectively.
