(1) putting more of our people to work,
(2) increasing our per capita productivity,
(3) decreasing our import dependency,
(4) increasing our export earnings,
(5) curbing our government expenditures relative to revenues, and
(6) increasing our tax earnings relative to GDP.
Prof Aluko1. It is a good thing that you get free amusement in this Buhari economy. There are many Nigerians who have not had the privilege in the past year. You owe me.2. There are many roads that lead to Nkwo Nnewi market. Those of us without the steering can only proffer the ways our knowledge and experience suggest to be the better way. Ultimately the man with the steering has to make the call and take responsibility for its come.3. Other than show off your 'cut and paste skills 'I am not sure exactly what the comparison table below between Nigeria and Australia is supposed to achieve. You have gone to elaborate lengths to compare Nigeria of today to Australia of today. The real comparison my post was expected to engender is a comparison of Nigeria of today to Australia of 30 years ago. And then ask the difficult question: What did they do in the intervening years to get to where they are and what can we learn from that. Are you able to do that study? It is more useful conversation than all these cut and paste charts.Australia is a mineral -resource -export / plant -and - machinery import dependent economy that 30 years was".. a basket case, with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew warning it risked becoming "the poor white trash of Asia."
Sounds a lot like Nigeria of today to me.Which led my rational mind to think that it is worth studying what Australia did right in the intervening years to bring them to where they are today. Surely there must one or two principles/ policies we can take from their lessons learnt and adapt for our purposes to help our journey to somewhere different in 30 years time. No?Joe
Sent from my iPhoneJoe Attueyi:I am always amused when without much reflection you compare Nigeria and some other countries - eg Australia in your latest example - and by implication or by explicit advice imagine that the economic policies that these other countries adopt or adopted at some point AUTOMATICALLY means that Nigeria should adopt them.I put it to you that adopting quite a number of these policies AS STATED may actually make things worse, not better.For example, I have put together below for our benefit a table of comparisons between Australia and Nigeria, and highlighted in red some key issues:TABLE 1: NIGERIA-AUSTRALIA COMPARISON
Source: cia.gov
S/N
Item
Nigeria
Australia
1
Population
186,053,386
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2016 est.)
country comparison to the world: 8
22,992,654
(July 2016 est.)
2
Area
total: 923,768 sq km
land: 910,768 sq km
water: 13,000 sq km
country comparison to the world: 32
total: 7,741,220 sq km
land: 7,682,300 sq km
water: 58,920 sq km
note: includes Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island
country comparison to the world: 6
3
Ethnic Groups
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups; the most populous and politically influential are: Hausa and the Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo (Ibo) 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%
English 25.9%, Australian 25.4%, Irish 7.5%, Scottish 6.4%, Italian 3.3%, German 3.2%, Chinese 3.1%, Indian 1.4%, Greek 1.4%, Dutch 1.2%, other 15.8% (includes Australian aboriginal .5%), unspecified 5.4%
4
Religions
Muslim 50%, Christian 40%, indigenous beliefs 10%
Protestant 30.1% (Anglican 17.1%, Uniting Church 5.0%, Presbyterian and Reformed 2.8%, Baptist, 1.6%, Lutheran 1.2%, Pentecostal 1.1%, other Protestant 1.3%), Catholic 25.3% (Roman Catholic 25.1%, other Catholic 0.2%), other Christian 2.9%, Orthodox 2.8%, Buddhist 2.5%, Muslim 2.2%, Hindu 1.3%, other 1.3%, none 22.3%, unspecified 9.3% (2011 est.)
5
Age Structure
0-14 years: 42.79% (male 40,744,956/female 38,870,303)
15-24 years: 19.48% (male 18,514,466/female 17,729,351)
25-54 years: 30.65% (male 29,259,621/female 27,768,368)
55-64 years: 3.96% (male 3,595,293/female 3,769,986)
65 years and over: 3.12% (male 2,754,040/female 3,047,002) (2016 est.)
population pyramid:
0-14 years: 17.84% (male 2,105,433/female 1,997,433)
15-24 years: 12.96% (male 1,528,993/female 1,451,340)
25-54 years: 41.55% (male 4,862,591/female 4,691,975)
55-64 years: 11.82% (male 1,347,780/female 1,369,501)
65 years and over: 15.82% (male 1,684,339/female 1,953,269) (2016 est.)
population pyramid:
6
Export Commodities
petroleum and petroleum products 95%, cocoa, rubber (2012 est.)
coal, iron ore, gold, meat, wool, alumina, wheat, machinery and transport equipment
7
Export $
$33.27 billion (2016 est.)
$45.89 billion (2015 est.)
$184.3 billion (2016 est.)
$188.3 billion (2015 est.)
8
Import Commodities
machinery, chemicals, transport equipment, manufactured goods, food and live animals
machinery and transport equipment, computers and office machines, telecommunication equipment and parts; crude oil and petroleum products
9
Import $
$36.4 billion (2016 est.)
$52.33 billion (2015 est.)
$203.1 billion (2016 est.)
$207.7 billion (2015 est.)
10
GDP - PPP
$1.089 trillion (2016 est.)
$1.108 trillion (2015 est.)
$1.08 trillion (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
$1.189 trillion (2016 est.)
$1.156 trillion (2015 est.)
$1.128 trillion (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
country comparison to the world: 20
11
GDP per capita
$5,900 (2016 est.)
$6,200 (2015 est.)
$6,200 (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
country comparison to the world: 163
$48,800 (2016 est.)
$48,300 (2015 est.)
$47,800 (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
country comparison to the world: 26
12
GDP Real Growth
-1.7% (2016 est.)
2.7% (2015 est.)
6.3% (2014 est.)
country comparison to the world: 205
2.9% (2016 est.)
2.4% (2015 est.)
2.7% (2014 est.)
13
GDP – Composition by Sector of Origin
agriculture: 21.1%
industry: 19.4%
services: 59.5% (2016 est.)
agriculture: 3.6%
industry: 28.2%
services: 68.2% (2016 est.)
14
Labor Force
58.8 million (2016 est.)
12.63 million (2016 est.)
country comparison to the world: 45
15
Labor Force by occupation
agriculture: 70%
industry: 10%
services: 20% (1999 est.)
agriculture: 3.6%
industry: 21.1%
services: 75.3% (2009 est.)
16
Unemployment Rate
23.9% (2011 est.)
4.9% (2011 est.)
5.8% (2016 est.)
6.1% (2015 est.)
17
Budget
revenues: $11.4 billion
expenditures: $21.21 billion (2016 est.)
revenues: $420.5 billion
expenditures: $446.4 billion (2016 est)
18
Taxes and other revenues
2.7% of GDP (2016 est.)
country comparison to the world: 217
33.5% of GDP (2016 est.)
19
Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold
$23.47 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
$29.07 billion (31 December 2015 est.)
$54.3 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
$49.27 billion (31 December 2015 est.)
20
Debt - External
$39.1 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
$32.27 billion (31 December 2015 est.)
country comparison to the world: 71
$1.692 trillion (31 December 2016 est.)
$1.524 trillion (31 December 2015 est.)
21
Exchange Rates
Nigerian nairas (NGN) per US dollar -
246.2 (2016 est.)
192.73 (2015 est.)
192.73 (2014 est.)
158.55 (2013 est.)
156.81 (2012 est.)
Australian dollars (AUD) per US dollar -
1.352 (2016 est.)
1.3291 (2015 est.)
1.3291 (2014 est.)
1.1094 (2013 est.)
0.97 (2012 est.)
First, Nigeria is about eight-and-a-half times the population of Australia and at the same time, about eight times LESS in size than Australia - with whatever the consequences of those facts. The age structure of Nigeria is heavily skewed towards the young (and unproductive) ages, compared with Australia, which means that the dependency ratio of Nigeria is greater. Nigeria is monocultural, with Australia being more diversified, with export earnings of Australia is six times that of Nigeria. The labor force structure of Nigeria is inverse of that of Australia. All of that may have led to a GDP per capita of Australia which is eight times of Nigeria, with Nigeria's GDP dwindling while Australia's own remained steady. Very instructively, while Australia's budget revenue is about forty times that of Nigeria, its budget expenditure is only twenty times that of Nigeria, implying that Australia's government is more frugal. As percentage of GDP, Australia collects over ten times more taxes than Nigeria. But note that while Australia's foreign reserves is barely twice that of Nigeria, its foreign debt is about four hundred times that of Nigeria, while its exchange rate since 2012 has experience similar battering like Nigeria's.
What I am indicating is that it is FACILE for you to just merely throw out what Australia has done since 1983, and then retreat.
EVERY recommendation that we make for our country MUST at the minimum be towards
(1) putting more of our people to work,
(2) increasing our per capita productivity,
(3) decreasing our import dependency,
(4) increasing our export earnings,
(5) curbing our government expenditures relative to revenues, and
(6) increasing our tax earnings relative to GDP.
Any other tasks are just time-wasting.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 12:55 PM, 'Joe Attueyi' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@googlegroups.com > wrote:--"....It was very different almost 30 years ago. Australia was a basket case, with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew warning it risked becoming "the poor white trash of Asia."A 17-year stretch of reform driven by Labor titans Bob Hawke and Paul Keating ensued. Starting with the currency's free float in 1983, it included financial deregulation, tax reform, slashing tariffs, ending centralized wage fixing and creating a private pension system. When Labor lost office in 1996, Liberal leader John Howard took up the cudgels, making the RBA officially independent, returning the budget to surplus and liberalizing labor laws. The introduction of a goods and services tax in 2000 was the last major successful reform. ..."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/as-austra lia-eyes-victory-on-growth- its-spoils-look-bittersweet? cmpid=socialflow-facebook- markets&utm_content=markets& utm_campaign=socialflow- organic&utm_source=facebook& utm_medium=social
Sent from my iPhone
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