Insider Monkey

Top 30 Developing Countries in the World

Ramish Cheema
10 min read

In this piece, we will take a look at the top 30 developing countries in the world. For more countries, head on over to Top 5 Developing Countries in the World.

There are 193 countries in the world. But only a few account for the bulk of the global economic output as this metric also follows the Pareto Law like others. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, the global economy was worth a whopping $86 trillion as of 2019. Out of this, the U.S. alone represented almost one fourth of the total economic output, with a $20.76 trillion GDP. In second place was China with its $13.6 trillion economy, beating Japan whose gross domestic product (GDP) was worth $4.97 trillion. Cumulatively, the top fifteen countries, with the last one on the list, Mexico, with its $1.5 trillion GDP, represented a stunning 75% of the total world economic output.

The latest GDP data, courtesy of the World Bank, shows that little has changed in terms of ranking. While the global GDP was worth $96 trillion in 2021, the largest economy was still the U.S., which was worth $23 trillion, with China and Japan coming in at second and third places, respectively, as their economies were worth $17 trillion and $4.9 trillion. Mexico was still the fifteenth largest economy in the world, with its economy falling to $1.2 trillion. Cumulatively, the top fifteen economies saw their global share of the economic pie increase between 2019 and 2021, as the coronavirus pandemic strained developing countries. This share was equal to $73 trillion or 76% of the total economic pie.

Naturally, as is evident through these details, not all economies are the same. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) classifies 152 countries as developing nations, which makes it clear that most of the world's regions are developing and not developed. These countries have a cumulative population of 6.74 billion, implying that more than two thirds of the global population live in them. The onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made life much harder for these countries. A large chunk of them had relied on cheap global credit to fuel their growth, but with the U.S. Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes last year, capital has started to fly out of these and into safe U.S. capital markets instead. The IMF, which is responsible for bailing these countries out, estimates that during the coronavirus pandemic, when the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to a record low, an estimated $100 billion made its way into emerging markets as the costs of borrowing for these countries dropped and global risk aversion to emerging markets came down.

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