Analyst: Smaller advantage for emerging economies

Analyst: Smaller advantage for emerging economies    The gap between growth rates in emerging and developed economies is expected to narrow in 2011 as some countries reach capacity limits, Robert West, principal maritime trade forecaster and infrastructure strategist at WorleyParsons, said Tuesday.
   In 2010, emerging nations on average grew more than 5 percent, with countries such as China growing at a much faster pace. Advanced nations collectively grew at less than 2 percent. Emerging economies have grown at a red-hot pace for many years compared to developed countries such as Germany, France, England, Japan and the United States.
   West estimated that the U.S. economy would grow at about 4 percent of real gross domestic product. Consensus among many other economists is that the economy will expand about 3 percent to 3.2 percent.
   Growth in emerging markets will cool down because those countries can't sustain the productivity gains of the past, West said Tuesday at the American Association of Port Authorities' spring conference in Washington. He predicted emerging economies would grow about 6 percent this year.
   'They've grown so much that they're at full capacity. Continuing 6, 7, 8 percent growth per year is actually very difficult. So the gap between emerging and developing markets we expect this year to be a little more narrow than we've seen in the past,' he said.
   Thos markets are still growing faster than developed ones and their outlook is positive, he added. ' Eric Kulisch