THE global economy cannot rely on countries such as China to be the driving force behind its recovery, according to three leading economists.

Speaking at the third annual Securities & Investment Institute’s Guernsey Investment Briefing, Invesco chief economist John Greenwood told delegates not to expect the Asian market to act as a ‘locomotive’ to compensate for the recession in the West – despite its healthy state.

Quite simply, the Asian economy had an export orientation to it and the consumption from the West that had existed in the past was no longer there, he said.

It was a point similarly made by Steven Andrew, fund manager of multi-asset funds at M&G.

‘Don’t wait for China’s consumers to drive world growth like the US consumer does. They don’t buy the same things.’

He said China made its presence felt in capital investment spend – not so much in consumer spend.

However, Mr Andrew pointed out that Bric countries such as China and Brazil could now expect to hold a greater influence in the world and not be ignored in a way they might have been in the past.

‘It’s where all the money ultimately went. They were the guys that were selling us lots of stuff. The Brics [Brazil, Russia, India, and China are now in the ascendancy and we should be paying much more attention to these places now.’

But they, too, were not immune to the effects of the global crisis, particularly bearing in mind that the largest consumption market in the form of the US had seen six million jobs lost in a year.

As a result, a huge chunk of the Brics’ consumer base had gone, according to Mr Andrew.

Michael O’Sullivan (pictured), head of UK research and global asset allocation at Credit Suisse Private Bank, said we were about to enter a much more ‘multi-polar world’, and that despite some doubting the consumer spend potential of places like China, tastes were beginning to change.