The coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout will help China rise past the US to become the world's largest economy, a new report shows. Beijing is now expected to overtake the US by 2028, as opposed to 2033, a UK think tank said in its latest report.

"We expect the United States' share of global GDP to decline from 2021 onwards, and for the country to eventually be overtaken by China as the world's largest economy," the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in an annual report released on Saturday. 

"We now expect this to happen in 2028, five years sooner than in the previous edition of the WELT," referring to the think tank's World Economic League Table, which measures countries' economic performance.

China was 'skillful' with the pandemic

The quickened pace has been attributed to the difference between Beijing and Washington's response to the coronavirus pandemic and the recovery that followed. The report hailed China's "skillful management of the pandemic," where an early lockdown kept the numbers under control.

The report added that the US would also see a strong post-pandemic rebound in the coming year, but its growth would slow down to 1.9% and 1.6% over the years that follow. 

China, on the other hand, is headed for an average growth rate of 5.7% a year from 2021 till 2025. Between 2026 and 2030, it is expected to slow down to 4.5% a year. 

Japan is expected to remain the third-largest economy until the early 2030s, when India could overtake it, pushing Germany to the fifth spot. 

see/dj (Reuters, CEBR annual report)