In the article, based on statistical and economic indicators and a number of models, the author analyzes long-term and modern processes of global economic growth, its main ingredients, proportions and factors in economically advanced and developing countries. He explores, whether the countries of the West and Japan possess features of what some of the scholars call ‘secular stagnation', or they grow, but in another dimension. He examines main components of Asian economic surge, its economic and social consequences and contradictions. He offers an assessment of scopes and major determinants of the realization by the countries of East and South of the strategy of catch-up and breakthrough development.