Up to 80 per cent of the world’s middle classes will live in developing countries by 2030 thanks to surprising recent gains in poverty reduction, according to a UN report published yesterday.

“Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast,” says the UN’s latest Development Report. “The world is witnessing an epochal ‘global rebalancing’.” This year’s report, launched in Mexico City, says higher economic growth in at least 40 developing countries has helped lift hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and pushed billions more into a new global middle class.

Underpinning the improvements in the human development index was rapid growth in countries such as China, India and Brazil, with China and India having doubled per capita economic output in less than 20 years. But the study stressed that growth and improvements in HDI spread far beyond the four Bric countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and included at least 40 countries that had accompanied greater economic dynamism with effective poverty reduction policies.