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Friday, May 13, 2011

Nigeria Drops In World Economic Index

EXCEPT Cote d'Ivoire, other African countries defeated Nigeria in global competitiveness report recently released by the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Economic Forum.


The country dropped from its previous 96th position to 127 in the current global economic performance, as its economic index was put at 3.4, which was said to be below the average index of 3.5 scored in the sub-Saharan Africa.

The global competitiveness report, which reflected economic performance of countries in the world with special focus on Africa, said Nigeria, however, has the biggest frontier market in Africa, even as they ranked it 30th in global market size.

It said despite Nigeria's potential market size, many other African countries performed better in the overall index scorecard, saying the war-ravaged Libya ranked 100, after recording 3.7 in overall index score.

Besides Libya, Tunisia where there was turmoil that led to the removal of the countries President few months ago, was assigned 4.7 to rank 32 in the list, while Namibia scored 4.1 and ranked 75. Botswana also scored 4.1 and ranked 76, Morocco scored 4.1 and ranked 75, while Rwanda, which scored 4.0 was ranked 80 in the world.

Egypt was also placed ahead of Nigeria, as it scored 4.0, ranking 81, while Tanzania and Zambia scored 3.6 and 3.5 to rank 113 and 115 respectively.

In West Africa, Gambia scored 3.9 and was ranked 90, Republic of Benin scored 3.7 and was ranked 103, Senegal scored 3.7, ranked 104, and Ghana scored 3.6 and was ranked 114. In the subregion, Nigeria however did better than Cote d'Ivoire, which scored 3.3 and was ranked 129.

Also in Africa, Nigeria was rated alongside Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Kenya as the top exporters in agriculture.

Regarding technological readiness, the report described it is an "area where African countries do overall quite poorly as a group."

Sweden led in that category and the highest-ranked African countries in this area were Tunisia, which got 55th ranking and in the top half of the rankings only by Mauritius at 61st.

According to the report, "in fact, 28 of the 35 African countries are in the bottom third, and occupy eighth of the bottom ten places overall. This is a reflection of the very low penetration rates of most information communication technologies (ICT) tools on the continent, related in part to the low prioritisation given by many governments to encourage ICT and other new technology adoption, as well as to low educational attainment."

But as a continent, Africa was commended for its achievements in areas such "as the innovative applications" in banking; agriculture; and, "in general, the rapid adoption of the mobile technology."

The report added: "In fact, several African frontier markets are ahead of major emerging market economies such as India in the usage of mobile phones, demonstrating that in an enabling environment Africa can rapidly adopt modern technology."

It cited the continent as "the fastest-growing market for mobile phones in the world."

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