#746 – World’s Top Ten Manufacturing Nations, 1970 – 2017

We found this fascinating animated chart from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that we thought our Agurban followers might find interesting as well. The author’s observations are below. Click on the Animation Link below the graphic to go to the animated view.

World’s top ten manufacturing nations, 1970 – 2017
Mark J. Perry  |  July 5, 2019

Here’s an animated “bar chart race” visualization showing the world top ten manufacturing nations by share of global manufacturing output from 1970 to 2017 using data from the statistics division of the United Nations.

Animation Link

A few observations:

1. The USSR was the world’s second largest manufacturing nation from 1970 until Japan surpassed the USSR in 1984 to rise to the No. 2 position.
2. After overtaking Russia in the mid-1980s, Japan quickly rose as a manufacturing powerhouse and almost overtook the USA by the mid-1990s including in 1993 when Japan produced 22.1% of world output vs. 22.9% for the USA and in 1995 when Japan produced 22.0% of the world’s manufacturing vs. USA’s 22.23% share.
3. China’s rise as a leading world manufacturer starting in the mid-1990s after a long period of producing a fairly stable share of only 3-4% of the world’s factory output from 1970 to 1995. By 1996, China was out-producing both Italy and France for the first time and outproduced Germany starting in 2001 before surpassing Japan in 2007 and the USA in 2010.
4. Despite falling to the No. 2 position behind China, the USA still produced as much manufacturing output in 2017 ($2.18 trillion) as Japan, Germany and Korea combined ($2.18 trillion) and more than Germany, Korea, India, Italy and France combined ($2.14 trillion).