Today, Political Calculations is repeating it's previous exercise in examining the GDP rankings of the nations surrounding the Pacific Ocean, but updating the data for 2004! One unique wrinkle - instead of adding the U.S. and Canada as whole nations, we're only looking at the equivalent GSP and GDP data for the Pacific Ocean bordering states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia!

The data in the table below has been adjusted for each country's Purchasing Power Parity, which takes into account how much an individual can buy within a country along with the currency exchange rate between the individual country's currency and the U.S. dollar. This allows for a more direct comparison between countries with different rates of exchange in their currencies, as well as what their currencies are capable of buying within their own countries. As a final note, the individual U.S. state GSP data has not been adjusted this way.

2004 Pacific Rim GDP-PPP, Population and GDP-PPP per Capita

Country/Territory	GDP-PPP ($USD billions)	Population (2004 est.)	GDP-PPP per Capita
Australia	611.7	19913144	30718
Bangladesh	275.7	141340476	1951
Bhutan	2.9	2185569	1327
Brunei	6.8	365251	18732
Cambodia	27.0	13363421	2020
Canada - British Columbia	124.7	4201867	29672
Chile	169.1	15823957	10686
China	7262.0	1298847624	5591
Colombia	281.1	42310775	6644
Cook Islands	0.1	21200	4953
Costa Rica	38.0	3956507	9597
East Timor	0.4	1019252	363
Ecuador	49.5	13212742	3747
El Salvador	32.4	6587541	4911
Fiji	5.2	880874	5873
French Polynesia	4.6	266339	17196
Guam	3.2	166090	19267
Guatemala	59.5	14280596	4164
Honduras	18.8	6823568	2754
Hong Kong	234.5	6855125	34208
India	3319.0	1065070607	3116
Indonesia	827.4	238452952	3470
Japan	3745.0	127333002	29411
Kiribati	0.1	100798	784
Korea, North	40.0	22697553	1762
Korea, South	925.1	48598175	19036
Laos	11.3	6068117	1859
Macau	9.1	445286	20436
Malaysia	229.3	23522482	9748
Maldives	1.3	339330	3684
Marshall Islands	0.1	57738	1992
Mexico	1006.0	104959594	9585
Micronesia, Federated States of	0.3	108155	2561
Nauru	0.1	12809	4684
New Caledonia	3.2	213679	14779
New Zealand	92.5	3993817	23163
Niue	0.0	2156	3525
Northern Mariana Islands	0.9	78252	11501
Pakistan	347.3	159196336	2182
Palau	0.2	20016	8693
Panama	20.6	3000463	6856
Papua New Guinea	12.0	5420280	2212
Peru	155.3	27544305	5638
Philippines	430.6	86241697	4993
Russia	1408.0	143782338	9793
Samoa	1.0	177714	5627
Singapore	120.9	4353893	27768
Solomon Islands	0.8	523617	1528
Sri Lanka	80.6	19905165	4048
Taiwan	576.2	22749838	25328
Thailand	524.8	64965523	8078
Tokelau	0.0	1405	1068
Tonga	0.2	110237	2213
Tuvalu	0.0	11468	1064
US - Alaska	34.0	655435	51874
US - California	1550.8	35893799	43205
US - Hawaii	50.3	1262840	39848
US - Oregon	128.1	3594586	35637
US - Washington	261.5	6203788	42152
Vanuatu	0.6	202609	2863
Vietnam	227.2	82689518	2748
Wallis and Futuna	0.1	15880	3778
Pacific Rim (All)	25348.6	3902999170	6495

The Richest and Poorest Nations Around the Pacific Rim

The west coast U.S. states of Alaska, California, Washington, Hawaii and Oregon top the list, followed by Hong Kong, Australia, the Canadian province of British Columbia, Japan and Singapore. If the U.S. and Canada are taken as whole nations, the top of the list as measured by GDP-PPP per Capita would be the United States ($40099), Hong Kong, Canada ($31469), Australia, Japan and Singapore.

The poorest nation in the Pacific Rim is the recently independent East Timor, followed by tiny nation of Kiribati (formerly, and perhaps better known as the Gilbert Islands.)

Data Sources:

GDP-PPP Data: 2004 GDP-PPP Data for Individual Nations
U.S. Individual GSP Data: 2004 GSP for U.S. States
Canada Individual Province GDP Data: Statistics Canada Releases Revised 2001-2004 GDP Data (170KB PDF document). Note: The GDP data for British Columbia was presented in raw 2004 Canadian dollars. It was converted to GDP-PPP (in 2004 US dollars) in the table above by multiplying the raw GDP figure by 79.29%, which was derived by dividing the GDP-PPP figure for Canada ($1.023 trillion USD) by the nation's raw GDP ($1.290 trillion CAD).
Population Data: July 2004 Population Estimates
GSP and GDP per Capita: This data was calculated by simply dividing the published GDP-PPP data by each nation's, state's or territory's population estimate for July 2004.

Previously on Political Calculations

2004 Economic and Population Data

• GDP Rankings in Muslim Nations
• 2004 GDP Rankings for Asia
• European Union 2004 GDP Rankings
• GDP in Africa: 2004
• GDP Rankings of the Americas: 2004 Edition
• EU vs US: Two Years of Economic Data Later....

2002 Economic and Population Data

• EU vs USA
• Cool Tools and GSP
• GDP of the Americas
• GDP in the Muslim World
• GDP in Europe
• GDP: Africa
• GDP Along the Pacific Rim
• GDP in Asia
• GDP: And the rest...

- posted by Ironman at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Home |