Eat Chinese dust, Germany!...

China is about to pass Germany as the world's third largest economy. This is earlier than forecast and supported by statistics of questionable accuracy, but still not unbelievable.

The National Bureau of Statistics raised its estimate of China's 2006 growth rate from 10.7 percent to 11.1 percent. It nudged up its estimate of total output by 146.4 billion yuan ($18.8 billion) to 21.1 trillion yuan ($2.705 trillion).

The revision brought China closer to Germany, the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan. Germany's 2006 output was $3 trillion but its 2.5 percent growth rate was well below China's. [More]

In another surprise ranking, author J. K. Rowling just passed Belgium.