Africa-Press – Eswatini. ESWATINI has been ranked the 10th African country on the continent with the best GDP per capita figures.
Business Insider Africa, published a courtesy list of Trading Economics, a data platform that offers its customers precise data for 196 nations, including historic data and projections for more than 20 million economic indicators, currency rates, and stock market indices.
The publication highlighted that the continent is rife with numerous resources, be it natural and human resources and its status as a developing region means that some countries are prime to enjoy a large GDP per capita, while others aren’t there yet.
“The disparity in GDP per capita across Africa is stuck. One end of the spectrum, countries like Seychelles and Mauritius boast comparatively high GDP per capita figures, driven by thriving tourism and service sectors,” reads the article in parts.
It further explains that this could be due to huge GDP revenue jux- posed against a controlled population, or it could just speak to the ingenuity and competence of administrator within the country.
“On the other hand, several Sub- Saharan Africa countries, like Chad and Central African Republic struggle with low GDP per capita due to a mix of factors including political instability, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to education and healthcare,” reads the article.
Economist Sanele Sibiya defined GDP per capita as a calculation that divides a country’s total economic output which is the country’s GDP by its population.
“GDP per capita is calculated by taking the GDP of the country and dividing it by the number of people in the country,” he said.
He added that Eswatini had a vast GDP compared relatively to the population.
“This mean that if the country’s GDP was to be distributed equally among the citizens, each individual would get US$4000 perannum,” he said
Sibiya further expressed that those figures would be realised if there was no skewness in the distribution of the wealth in the country and that is what GDP per capita outlined.
“When you look at the GDP per capita it tells us that if wealth was distributed equally, each citizen would get between US$3 000 to US$4000 perannum,” added Sibiya. He stated that the positive rank- ing painted a beautiful picture but was not what was on the ground and was probably based on the fact that the country’s population was small but the country was equally able to produce and perform better than most countries in the region.
“When you look at our GDP per capita, it indicates that actually none of our citizens should be living below the poverty line, that is when you look at factors like the distribution of income and wealth which is where the coefficient comes in,”said Sibiya.
He added that Eswatini was a prosperous nation however the prosperity did not find its way through to the entire population as it only benefited a few people.
“We also just caution that it is not a good measure as it does not take into account the other factors like the distribution of wealth. It will depict a country that is doing well and on its own paints a very good picture but it is not the whole story,” Sibiya said.
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