Firsts in 2010

After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter of 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States.

In 2010, Philippines call centers are expected to have higher revenues than their Indian counterparts.

On October 1, 2010, Iraq surpassed the record for the country that has gone the longest between holding parliamentary elections (which occurred on March 7) and forming a government — passing the Netherlands in 1977.

There are now more billionaires in China than in any country but the United States. Beijing alone has about 150,000 residents worth more than $1.5 million.

In mid-2010, the Bank of Japan appointed its first female branch manager in its 128-year history, Japan Airlines Corporation announced its first female pilot captain — and East Japan Railway now has female station masters in Tokyo for the first time.

South Korea broke into the top 25 global financial centers for the first time in 2010.

In October 2010, Brazil elected its first woman president, Dilma Rousseff, a career civil servant who served as energy minister and then as chief of staff for outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

On January 17, 2010, the German and Israeli cabinets met jointly in Germany for the first time ever.

As of late May 2010, more U.S. forces were serving in Afghanistan than in Iraq for the first time since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In mid-February 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first French president to visit Haiti ever since the country declared its independence from France in 1801.

Sources: 1. New York Times; 2. Financial Times; 3. Cornell University; 4. International Herald Tribune; 5. Wall Street Journal; 6. Z/Yen Group; 7. BBC; 8. International Herald Tribune; 9. Associated Press; 10. France 24