In 2023, Belarus had a population of 9.5 million and a GDP of 71.8 billion in current U.S. dollars, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau and the International Monetary Fund. As our chart based on data from the aforementioned sources, Eurostat and the World Bank shows, its accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) led by China and Russia might help the organization close its ranks in a geopolitical sense. Its monetary contribution, however, is rather minimal in comparison.
Overall, the ten member states of the SCO, which apart from China, Russia and Belarus are India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Iran, had a combined estimated GDP of $24.4 trillion in 2023, roughly $6 trillion more than the European Union. The G7 states of Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom contributed $46.8 trillion to the global GDP of $104.8 trillion, which equals 45 percent of the world's total. Broadening the scope to G20, the share of this group of countries in the global GDP rises to 78 percent, largely because of the inclusion of China, which had an estimated GDP of $17.8 trillion in current prices, rivaled only by the United States with a GDP of $27.4 trillion.
