Another challenge is presented by many of the countries with “transition” or “formerly planned” economies—that is, countries undergoing a transition from centrally planned to market economies.
On the one hand, none of these countries has achieved the established threshold of high per capita income. But on the other, many of them are highly industrialized. This is one reason their classification by the World Bank is currently “under review.” Note that in the World Bank’s
World Development Report 1982 these same countries were classified as “industrial nonmarket,” and in current United Nations publications
most of them are still grouped among “industrial” countries.