Historical Overview of World Development:

It is commonly said that the economic development started after the year 1800. In this respect Angus Maddison who was an economic historical analyzed the world economy from the Year 1820 to 1992. According to him:

The world's population was 1068 million, GDP was $695 billion and per capita GDP was $651 in the year 1820. In the year 1870 the world population was 1260 million, GDP was $1128 billion and per capita GDP was $895. In the year 1913, the world population was 1772 million, GDP was $2716 billion and per capita GDP was $1539. In 1950, the population of the world was 2512 million, the GDP was $5372 billion and per capita GDP was $2138. In 1973, the population of the world was 3897 million, GDP was $16064 billion and per capita GDP was $4123. While in the year 1995, the population of the world was 5672 million, GDP was $29423 billion and per capita GDP was $ 5188.

Thus according to Prof. Maddison there took place big changes in the world's major economic variables like real GDP, per capita real GDP and population, as:

(1) in this period there was a five time increase in the population of the world, (2) there was a 40 times increase in the real output of the world, (3) consequently the per capita real GDP increased by eight times.

Diagram/Figure:

The detail of foreign exchange reserves was as; Till September 2009, China had the foreign exchange reserves of $2273 billion; Japan had $1052 billion, Russia had $413 billion; India had $281 billion; Germany had $184 billion; Singapore had $182 billion; Pakistan had $14 billion; and Hong Kong had $23 billion.