Brazil Now the Sixth-Largest Economy

U.K. falls to seventh place as South America's largest economy continued to boom in 2011.

The Queen's Christmas message of hope rang hollow for many economists as 2011 saw Brazil overtake the U.K. as the sixth-largest economy according to the Center for Economics and business Research (CEBR). Like many of its European counterparts, the U.K. is expected to see a "lost decade" of low growth, while growth rates for many Asian countries, Russia, and other commodity-producing economies such as Brazil are expected to steadily climb. Though he ended the year on a high in the polls, the economic forecasts are bad news for British Prime Minister David Cameron as the CEBR also predicted the U.K. will fall to 8th place in the global rankings by the year 2020. It wasn't all doom and gloom for the Brits however as rival from across the channel, France, was predicted to fall from 5th to 9th place in the rankings over the same period.