On Tuesday the International Monetary Fund released its latest World Economic Outlook. A striking new finding emerges: the seven largest emerging markets are now bigger, in gross domestic product terms, than the long established G7 group of industrialised nations, when measured at purchasing power parity (PPP).

A hypothetical new G7, comprising the BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India and China — and three of the so-called MINT economies – Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey — has a combined GDP of $37.8 tn (at purchasing power parity) compared to $34.5 tn for the old G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.

The calculation of PPPs is far from an exact science. But, even with caveats, the new estimates point to a dramatically changed world: half of the twenty largest economies are now emerging markets and half are from the established rich world; Indonesia has entered the top 10 and overtaken the UK to become the 9th largest economy in the world; Nigeria – the other MINT economy – has leapt ten places in the rankings from 30th to 20th after the government rebased its measurement of GDP.