Barcelona — February, 19th 2011 — FXstreet.com is pleased to announce the results of the first Forex Best Awards, an event that highlights the best analysis and educational content and experts of the Forex English-speaking market in 2010.

A total of 7,880 votes were cast since the launching of the survey on February 5th until the closing on February 16th at 8 pm EST / February 17th at 01:00 FMT. The nominees of the twelve categories had been selected by the FXstreet.com contents team for their quality and popularity on the website. A total of more than 35 pieces of content as well as 60 different contributors had been chosen. The list was then submitted to popular vote to determinate the winner of each category.

The survey was available on every page of FXstreet.com website (http://www.fxstreet.com/) and on the link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/fx_awards_2011. Voters were able to choose only one nominee by category and could decide to skip some categories if they wished.

This year's winners are:

1. Best Fundamental Analysis: "Forex Weekly Outlook" by Forex Crunch
2. Best Technical Analysis: "Experts Forecast Currencies Poll" by FXstreet.com Team – with the contribution of: Gonçalo Moreira, Guillermo Alcalá, Alberto Muñoz, Stoyan Mihaylov, Valeria Bednarik, James Chen, Dr. Sivaraman, ecPulse.com, Ilian Yotov, Mauricio Carrillo, Adam Narczewski, Anna Coulling, Ian Coleman, PivotFarm.com, Yohay Elam, Chris Capre, Mohammed
Isah, Tomas Cedavicius, Derek Frey, Dale J Pinkert.
3. Best Banking Research Team: Danske Bank Research Team
4. Best Broker Research Team: DailyFX Research team
5. Best Educational Content: "Lessons From the Pros", Weekly piece by Sam Seiden at Online Trading Academy
6. Best Educator: Sam Seiden
7. Best Webinar: "Identifying High Probability Turning Points" by Sam Seiden
8. Best Book: "Essentials of Technical Analysis for Financial Markets" by James Chen
9. Best Magazine: FX Trader Magazine
10. Best Blogger: Wayne McDonell: FxBootcamp
11. Best Metatrader Addon: 100 pips a day by Metaquotes
12. Best New Contributor: FXTimes

BEIJING - China may overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy this year, but it remains a developing economy despite its fast pace of growth, economists said.

Japan's nominal gross domestic product (GDP), which is not adjusted for price and seasonal variations, was worth $1.286 trillion in the April-to-June quarter compared with $1.335 trillion for China, according to data released by the Japanese government on Monday. The figures are converted into dollars based on an average exchange rate for the quarter.

Japan's GDP grew at an annualized rate of just 0.4 percent, the government said, far below the annualized 4.4 percent expansion in the first quarter and adding to evidence the global recovery is facing strong head wind.

China has surpassed Japan in quarterly GDP figures before, but this time it is unlikely to relinquish the lead, AP reported.

China's economy will almost certainly be bigger than Japan's at the end of 2010 because of the huge difference in each country's growth rates. China is growing at about 10 percent a year, while Japan's economy is forecast to grow between 2 to 3 percent this year.

The gap between the size of the two economies at the end of last year was already narrow. Chinese economists estimated China's leading advantage would maintain through the rest of 2010, reinforced by its usually more vibrant economy in the fourth quarter and possible yuan appreciation.

Japan has held the No 2 spot behind the United States since 1968, when it overtook West Germany. From the ashes of World War II, the country rose to become a global manufacturing and financial powerhouse. But its "economic miracle" turned into a massive real estate bubble in the 1980s before imploding in 1991.

Despite emerging as an economic power, China remains far behind many countries if per capita GDP is taken into account.

In 2009, China reported a per capita GDP of $3,687, as compared to $37,800 for Japan and $46,436 for the US. China ranked 103th worldwide in terms of per capita GDP, according to the World Bank.

Richard Berner, Morgan Stanley's chief US economist, said that the news of China's GDP overtaking Japan came as no surprise. The nation's GDP on the purchasing power parity basis already surpassed Japan some time ago.

In 2007, China overtook Germany as the third-largest economy in terms of total GDP. A decade ago, it ranked seventh globally.

Gu Yuanyang, economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the quality of its economic growth is yet to match its pace of expansion.

"China lags far behind in the ability to transform technical progress into economic benefits and our weight of research and development to GDP is very low," he said. "We are over-dependent on foreign technologies."

Despite the fast expanding GDP, China is still bothered by such domestic problems as poverty and a widening wealth gap, which thwarts its efforts to take on more international responsibilities, said Yang Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Beijing Foreign Studies University.

He said how much China could contribute to the international community depends on how well it could address domestic economic problems.

Lei Yanhua, researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation affiliated to the Ministry of Commerce, said responsibility on the international scene should result in a greater say in global bodies.

"When China takes more responsibilities internationally, it should have a greater voice in major international organizations on key global issues," he said.

(AP contributed to this story)