WORLD: ANALYSIS - Analysts see new world order if Asia fulfils growth potential.

With China leading the way, 2004 could herald market change, Lucy Aitken writes.

To anyone who didn't spend 2003 snoozing under a stone, there was no mistaking that China has officially become the world's most exciting country. A report by Leo Burnett Asia-Pacific, 20 20 Vision, shows that, while Japan was steadily on its way to becoming the world's second-largest economy during the 80s, the noughties belong to China.

This huge market, buzzing with more than one billion consumers, has never looked so appealing to global businesses wanting to access a new stream of consumers.

To give an idea of China's astonishing potential, a Goldman Sachs report entitled Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050 ambitiously speculates that China will be the world's second-largest economy by 2016 and will overtake the US as the world's largest economic power by 2041. The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), according to Goldman Sachs, will account for more than half the size of the G6 economies (the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France and Italy) by 2025.

The impact that this seismic shift will have on the world's advertising community is off the scale. What's more significant in the short term, though, is how a whole new world economic order is emerging, pioneered by the rapid growth in Asia's key markets.

The way we see the world is changing. Referring to China, Adam Smith, the head of knowledge management at ZenithOptimedia, says: 'Whatever we may think of China's political complexion, you'd have to offer an explanation as to why you're not in Greater China now, whether you're building a brand or an agency network.'

This can come down to sheer numbers, however. Smith points out that China's affluent middle classes alone account for half a billion people, roughly equivalent to the size of the European Union. Yet, population aside, growth is steered by other factors. Productivity is one while political stability is another. Smith points out that the hype over China's economic future must be framed realistically when it comes to advertising growth: 'In China, everything is state-owned. Westerners are nibbling at the edges, but without proper competition you'll never get pricing wars or a proper market emerging.'