A graphic illustration of why investors can't ignore China and India

Worldmapper is an interesting website, showing maps drawn according to population. The world map gives a very striking illustration of why China and India have so much investment potential – they're by far the most dominant countries on the map.

Worldmapper is an interesting website, showing maps drawn according to population, among other things. The world map gives a very striking illustration of why China and India have so much investment potential they're by far the most dominant countries on the map.

09-10-02-worldpop2

Disclaimer

Map 2009 SASI Group (University of Sheffield)

Having a large and growing population alone won't make a country rich. But if the population is striving for a better standard of living, then demand for raw materials and consumer goods takes off. In a world short on resources and concerned about environmental degradation, that means India and China will be under pressure to make more efficient use of the resources they have (so keep an eye on their alternative energy industries) and to acquire more, as China's ongoing global resources grab makes clear.

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John Stepek

John is the executive editor of MoneyWeek and writes our daily investment email, Money Morning. John graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news. John joined MoneyWeek in 2005.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.