Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are projected to be two of the cities in the world to record the highest average growth rates of GDP during the period 2008-2025, according to a research conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).

The research, published in the UK’s Economic Outlook magazine in an article named “Which are the largest city economies in the world and how this might change by 2025”, provided estimates for the growth of GDP in the world’s major city economies from 2008 to 2025. It covered 151 cities around the world, including Vietnam’s two biggest cities.

It also ranks the growth of GDP by taking into account the impact of the current economic downturn and a potential de-globalisation scenario.

According to PwC’s estimates, the GDP of the world’s 100 largest cities accounted for approximately 30 percent of global GDP in 2008, while the top 30 cities alone accounted for around 18 percent of the world’s GDP.

Tokyo in Japan, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in the US and London in the UK came top of the list.

PwC projected that by 2025 the fastest climbers within the top 30 largest urban economies would be Shanghai in China , moving into the top 10 from being 25th in 2008 to 9th in 2025. Mumbai in India is also expected to make a significant jump from being 29th in 2008 to 11th in 2025.

Both Hanoi and HCM City will be two of the more notable climbers in the 2025 list. HCM City is expected to leap into 64th position from 95th and Hanoi from 116th in 2008 to 82nd in 2025.

In terms of economic growth during the 2008-2025 period, Hanoi and HCM City will come first and second in the top 30 fastest growing cities with an annual average GDP growth rate of 7 percent over that period.

There are no advanced city economies represented in this list, when compared to Vietnam’s two top cities and 12 will be Indian and nine Chinese. This clearly shows that global economic power is shifting towards emerging markets.

“At present, the mega-cities of the major developed economies continue to lead the global GDP rankings,” said the General Director of PwC Vietnam, Ian S. Lydall, “Only seven emerging economy cities are currently in the top 30 but our illustrative projections suggest that they will all move up the GDP rankings by 2025 and enter the top 30.”

He added: “We expect large emerging market cities such as Hanoi and HCM City to grow at a faster rate, between 6-7 percent per annum, than the cities in advanced economies, 2 percent, leading to cumulative growth of up to almost 200 percent over the 2008-2025 period. This is in contrast to cities from advanced economies whose cumulative growth will be only around 35 percent.”/.