The global economy is split into three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and services. A few centuries ago, agriculture accounted for the vast majority of world GDP. However, the industrial revolution in the 1700s and 1800s resulted in manufacturing surpassing agriculture in importance and continuously expanding its lead in subsequent years.
However, in the latter part of the 20th century, the services sector grew strongly and surpassed manufacturing in importance, a lead that continues to expand to this day. As of 2013, around 6 percent of world GDP was accounted for by agriculture, 30 percent was accounted by manufacturing and a majority 64 percent was accounted by services.
Nevertheless, manufacturing will continue to remain important in the coming decades, in spite of increasing automation trends and continued strong growth in the global services sector. China is the world’s largest manufacturing nation, well ahead of second placed US. No other country approaches these two in importance, although India, Japan and Germany are also significant.