Just how global the rise in patents is becoming can be seen in the rapid increase in patent applications by Chinese companies, reflecting China’s rapid growth as an economic superpower.

Figures published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in December 2012 reveal China moved ahead of the US in the number of patents registered in its own market.

China’s Patent Office has received more applications than any other country’s since 2011, three-quarters of them lodged by Chinese companies.

The OECD and the Brookings Institution define the middle class as those earning $10 to $100 at purchasing power parity per day.

On this basis, more than half of the world’s middle classes are forecast to be in the Asia Pacific region in less than ten years, compared to the current proportion of only one in four.

Whereas the middle class is described as “squeezed” in the UK and the US, it is growing at various speeds in emerging markets.

China is set to raise both its headcount of people in the middle class and their average spending over the next decade.

India has a small middle-class range, but the country has the 14th largest middle-class spending power in the world due to the size of its population, a similar scale of overall spending to that of Canada or Spain.

The red regions comprise the affluent nations; the blue the “converging” regions, where the breadth and density of the middle class is growing rapidly; the green areas are areas where structural income disparities have helped stall middle-class development; while the purple areas are “struggling”.

In this map, Brazil is the real surprise and is considered – at least in this treatment – as “stalled”.

The Data mapper reveals current annual growth levels for the world’s economies according to the International Monetary Fund (as at April 2012).

It analyses the size of real growth of gross domestic product (GDP). The most striking aspect of the map is that large parts of Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe are experiencing between three and six per cent annual growth.

In many Asian and African countries the growth rate is between six and ten per cent.

This picture is in stark contrast to most of Western Europe, Japan, Canada and New Zealand, which are experiencing less than three per cent growth.

The Data mapper shows in sharp relief the impact of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis.

This is at the same time that the rest of the world, with some exceptions, including the economically stagnant countries in central Africa, appears to be shaking off the effects of the global financial crisis.

Talent spotting
This global map shows the predicted shifting trends in talent gaps over the next 30 years.

The major trend is that, with the exception of Russia, the BRIC countries of Brazil, India and China are not expecting a talent shortfall as their economies continue to expand.

However, the story is not the same with the traditional economic powerhouses of the US, Germany and Japan, where a shortage of talent is expected to continue all the way through to 2030.

Map: Graphics Factory CC

Measuring wealth
The value of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds is largely a representation of those countries which hold the largest energy assets, especially oil – with the exception of economies with large export assets.

The rationale for creating the funds has been to ensure the capital created from energy price spikes is invested effectively.

The investment outflows from these countries have been modest in recent years, reflecting a conservative attitude to investing during a time when the value of assets has broadly fallen.

A driving force for growth
Rapidly growing middle classes with considerable spending power and a desire for high-value goods are helping drive growth in the economies of Asian countries.

However, the arrival of a billion more middle-class consumers will also speed up the shift of East Asian economies from focusing on export-led development to more consumption-driven growth.

Global elections of 2012
Market stability, public debt and the health of the global economy will dominate election campaigns across the world during 2012 – a year of political change in many major countries.

This graphic maps out when and where the major power shifts are set to take place, using GDP as a relative indicator of their global economic significance.

The dominance of the US and China on the global economic landscape is clearly illustrated by plotting the fastest growing companies on a world map

Battling for a wage
Global unemployment rose by 29 million between 2007 and 2009, with those aged 15 to 24 often worst hit. The youth unemployment rate in the Middle East (23.9 per cent) and north Africa (24 per cent) also highlight one of the main drivers behind the political uprisings in that region – a warning for South Africa, which has a youth unemployment rate of 50.5 per cent, and Spain, where it is 41.6 per cent.

Youth unemployment rate by region (%) (2011 estimates)
North Africa 24.0
Middle East 23.9
Central and south-eastern Europe 18.2
Latin America and the Caribbean 15.2
South-east Asia and the Pacific 14.6
Developed economies and EU 12.7
Sub-Saharan Africa 12.3
South Asia 9.8
East Asia 8.1

One unfortunate by-product of the close economic rivalry between China and the US is the size of their carbon footprints. In 2007, China contributed 22.3% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions, compared with 19.9% for the US. The other fast-growing Bric economies were a long way behind: Brazil (1.26%), Russia (5.24%) and India (5.5%). Other major emitters were Japan (4.28%) and Germany (2.69%).