(It should really come as no surprise. China was the clear winner in our Feedback Poll last week, which focused on the economic growth leaders for 2008. In fact, 59% of our readers placed this sure bet, while nearly a quarter of respondents voted for India. The US brought up the rear, with 18%. Now, commentator Bach puts it all into perspective.-ed.)

The poll results indicate exactly what we'll see. Certainly, China has been growing the fastest over the past few years. The International Monetary Fund projects growth in China to be the fastest of the three countries, followed fairly closely by India. The US is a distant third in terms of growth. And that's just to be expected because the US is a mature country.

China is an industrializing country--rapidly industrializing. So is India. They have a lot of raw materials to work with. In the US, we've already been through that and we just can't expect growth rates like that in the future, nor can Western Europe.

China clearly has the lead in terms of attracting manufacturers, and India has the lead in attracting call centers. That's the way it's been in the past few years, and those countries are developing infrastructures that support that. It's their sweet spot. It makes sense since India has a lot more English-speaking people than China. There's a closer link to the language than China. The development of those sweet spots will continue.

Longer term, Sam Zell recently said that we should watch out for 2009. That's the year we could face a recession. Economic growth is a little slow this year but it looks like we'll be able to skate through it. The last two expansions have both lasted 10 years. There's nothing magical about that figure, but they're quite long by historic standards. If we can continue to skate through this slow spot, '08 and '09 should look pretty good.

Robert Bach is senior vice president of research and client services for Chicago-based Grubb & Ellis. The views expressed in this article are the author's own.