The Global Economy’s “Group of 48”

1. A total of 48 countries — about 25% of the countries for which the World Bank has GDP data — individually generate between 0.1% and 1% of world GDP.

2. The combined GDP of those 48 countries is $13.2 trillion (as of 2012), or around 18% of world GDP as measured in U.S. dollars.

3. Put another way, these nations combined equal only four-fifths of the $16.2 trillion U.S. economy, the world’s largest.

4. The largest economy in this “Group of 48” is oil-rich Saudi Arabia, whose $711 billion economy is the largest in the Middle East and 19th-largest in the world.

5. The Saudi economy accounted for a 0.98% share of world GDP in 2012.

6. The smallest economy in this group is also a Middle Eastern country, Syria, whose $73.7 billion economy accounted for almost exactly a 1/1000th-share of the world economy.

Sources: World Bank and The Globalist Research Center