Nigeria Economy

ECONOMIC GROWTH: LESSON’S FROM CHINA (PART ONE)

By Nnamdi Anyene Nigeria’s economy has taken a downturn in recent years. We are experiencing recession on a scale never seen before since our independence from the United Kingdom on 1st October 1960. Some Economists have indicated we are experiencing stagflation. Despite the fact that Nigeria is blessed with an abundant variety of resources, both material and human, there is little market confidence. Consequently, local and foreign stakeholders are wary of letting their hard earned funds flow into the economy.

Inflation and unemployment are at an all-time high and there is a general sense of despondency in the country. Most citizens are of the opinion that there is no clear-cut agenda to

We should look to such nations as China and the United States to study their journeys from being internationally isolated to becoming the two largest economies in the world. Both countries have had their fair share of misfortunes, economic, political and the like. Both were not crushed by their adversities, but instead emerged to be two giants in the world economy. How did they achieve this? We will examine China’s journey in this article.

Nigeria and China are similar in many ways. China is the most populous country in Asia and the world. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the largest black nation on earth. China and Nigeria are multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious countries. Both have enormous natural resources and great potentials that are yet to be fully harnessed. Both have histories of political and civil unrest. From independence to the mid-80s, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was higher than China’s. From 1988 onwards, this has no longer been the

The PRC was formed in a region that had experienced a century of unrests, civil wars and foreign invasions. To put this into context, consider that Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony from 1842 to 1941, occupied by Japan during World War II from 1941 to 1945 and ruled again by the British from 1945 to 1997. In October 1911, the Xinhai Revolution started and ended in February 1912 with the abdication of the six year old Emperor of China.

Mainland China experienced civil wars from 1927 to 1937 and also from 1946 to 1950. Manchuria, an area now in Northeast China was occupied by the Japanese during World War II. These are just a few of the conflicts that troubled the Chinese prior to the establishment of the PRC. When the PRC was founded in 1949, the country had little industry. What industry that existed before was destroyed by so many years of wars and turmoil. Chinese money had no value and unemployment rates were