The list was compiled for 2011,

, Many people assume that China is the fastest growing country in the world, but that is not the case - it is the fastest growing larget economy, and as we will see that is a different thing.

We also took a look at the key trends that are driving the growth figures.

While trends are following through as projected, you may be surprised at who is now leading the pack in terms of economic growth - not a country that is normally thought of in those terms.

Let’s take a look at the stats for 2011:

http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/12-fastest-growing-economies-of-2011-8-12.html

Ghana, one of the best, if not, the best country in West Africa.

I think Ghana has more right to claim "Giant of Africa" than Nigeria does.

Good news from Ghana. 
I'm proud of ya

Is this likely to be a one-time thing, or something sustainable?

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

ekt_bear:

Is this likely to be a one-time thing, or something sustainable?

Great observation but only time will tell

ekt_bear:

Is this likely to be a one-time thing, or something sustainable?

That is the most important question but if things were rightly put in place before 2011 fast growth was achieved, then there is every tendency that this growth will be sustainable even if Ghana does not come out tops in 2012.

afam4eva:

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

^^^No be only you . There you'd see a people reach their full potential without having to contend with suspicious, bad-belle, pull-them-down-to our level, hold-them-down-while-we-catch-up, generally lazy groups of individuals. You'd see a situation where -as an ethnic group- you'd have no recourse to quota-system and federal character to shield your lazy azz, and you'd either have to pull your socks up and get stuck in, or run the risk of being left behind while your people go hungry and get more embittered with their lot.

If there was an indigenous Igbo population in Ghana, i would have changed nationality like a shot.

Well done to Ghana (even if i'm a little bit envious ).

afam4eva:

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

Me and you both. There were some Igbo slaves sent to Ghana whom never made it to the Atlantic ocean. I know some stayed but I'm unsure if they are still in Ghana but remain minority like they did in Cameroon and EQ or have they intermarried into the Ghanaian community and gone forever. I go change my nationality the next day if I found out their community are still there in Ghana even if they are minority I no care.   

I think some are bold enough to do it but not all. I had an uncle that changed his nationality, he went from Nigeria to Ivory Coast and he's been there ever since. He's entire children, including him, claim Ivory coast as their nationality but they still call themselves Igbo. Zik's daughter changed hers to Gambia. One more person I know of is that American Igbo sisters that recently joined Yankee Nollywood, one is married to tuface brother, didn't they say their family is from Sierra Leone? Her family probably changed their nationality after Biafran war.

I don't blame them but I wouldn't want to go to a place I'm all alone.

Long live Ghana, happy news for our west african brothers and sisters.

nice one from Ghana

They should please go into manufacturing. Ghana Economy is 100% import based

They're trying to do that. That's why they're trying to woo companies like Innoson from Nigeria.

Good for them

afam4eva:

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

[size=15pt]Imagine comment? Nigerians keep deceiving yourself, we are not sustainable together as a nation, we should just split and let every region tackle their own business.[/size]

afam4eva:

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

LOL,

You think Ghanians have time for Bigotry?

The country is growing, leave them alone.

Can't you see that we're not ready to move forward as a country. Is it not better we split. This nation is drawing everyone backward.

Kudos

I hope no one is surprised about Nigeria not being on the list. When you have a president and legislators who care more about their own welfare rather than the larger society, then you cant expect economic growth. No country in the world spends as much as we do on our elected officials and yet we dont get the necessary dividends they have been elected to produce.

afam4eva:

I wish we had Igbos in Ghana. I would have changed nationality a long time ago.

If Igbos were in Ghana, then Ghana would be doomed.

You people would introduce MASSOB, OHANEZE, BAKASSI BOYS and all your vices to them. You would even kidnap your sitting governor, kidnap little children on their way to school and cry marginalization everytime you lost an election to a non igbo.

There are Yoruba tribes in Ghana, Ndi ugwu tribes in Ghana but no Igbo tribe. FOOD FOR THOUGHT!


The day I see one progressive Igbo state, then I would start taking all this "Igbo progressive" talk seriously.

Igbo ppl #shakes head#

I am a Nigerian working and living in Ghana. I was initially afraid when I was tranfered from Nigeria to Ghana Jan last year. I have gone to almost all the 10 regions of Ghana and i can tell you that Ghana is getter than 9ja now for 3 major reasons
PEACE and SECURITY- This is attracting alot of investments for them.
CONSTANT POWER-Imagine how life will be after a hard days work, you come back home and there is electricity. People dont use gen here. Even most organisations, hotels, filling stations etc dont have gen. They dont need them because there is always power. I know how much I spend on fuel for my gen in 9ja every month. Here, that amount is like an extra income to me. Even call rate is much cheaper here because telecom companies dont buy diesel to power their sites. They use electricity. Call rate here is as low as 6 naira per mins. The maximun call rate is 10 naira. Even cyber cafe 80 naira per hour. I pay 20 ghana cedis(2000 naira) for electricity bill for my 1 bedroom flat almost the same thing I pay in 9ja when I hardly see the light in 9ja while here in Ghana is 24 hours.
BAD LEADERSHIP- MP(members of parliament) in Ghana receives 4000 Ghana Cedis(400,000 naira) every month while a Senator in Nigeria makes 9.9million naira every month. The MPs are clamouring for increase to 7000 Ghana cedis(700,000 naira). Nigeria cannot grow with this bad leaders we have feeding themselves fat while the common man on the street keep wallowing in poverty.

Ghana!! The BEST   except in last world & nations cup  

Rubbishhh.Fastest growing econonomy my foot.

What do they produce and export?

What has been their contribution to the global market?

How many Ghanaian companies can you find in other West African countries Nigeria inclusive?

How developed is their financial market?

How developed is their manufacturing sector?

Just because they started producing oil in minute quantity only yesterday, you come here to taunt Nigerians.

Bunch of blind over-patriotic morons!

Umunede:

I am a Nigerian working and living in Ghana. I was initially afraid when I was tranfered from Nigeria to Ghana Jan last year. I have gone to almost all the 10 regions of Ghana and i can tell you that Ghana is getter than 9ja now for 3 major reasons
PEACE and SECURITY- This is attracting alot of investments for them.
CONSTANT POWER-Imagine how life will be after a hard days work, you come back home and there is electricity. People dont use gen here. Even most organisations, hotels, filling stations etc dont have gen. They dont need them because there is always power. I know how much I spend on fuel for my gen in 9ja every month. Here, that amount is like an extra income to me. Even call rate is much cheaper here because telecom companies dont buy diesel to power their sites. They use electricity. Call rate here is as low as 6 naira per mins. The maximun call rate is 10 naira. Even cyber cafe 80 naira per hour. I pay 20 ghana cedis(2000 naira) for electricity bill for my 1 bedroom flat almost the same thing I pay in 9ja when I hardly see the light in 9ja while here in Ghana is 24 hours.
BAD LEADERSHIP- MP(members of parliament) in Ghana receives 4000 Ghana Cedis(400,000 naira) every month while a Senator in Nigeria makes 9.9million naira every month. The MPs are clamouring for increase to 7000 Ghana cedis(700,000 naira). Nigeria cannot grow with this bad leaders we have feeding themselves fat while the common man on the street keep wallowing in poverty.

thank you bros for this post, i thank you b'cos you'v taken time  to give details on which you base your judgement,unlike every other comment so far on this thread, you have given a brief analysis & the points are reasonably differentiated.

why is it that nobody so far has asked about what data & factors on which this report is based? this seems to be a general character of nigerians & that is why we continue & shall continue(unless we wake up) to regress. we never ask questions concerning progress, instead we are busy shouting ghana this!!, ghana that!!,  blahblablah, wasting time. guys, pls ask questions & be educated.

it is good news that ghana's economy is growing, but as long as this report does not give us a breakdown(at least a summary) of the factors that has contributed this growth, then i can summarize that it's all words in the wind. what have we learnt from this report? what can we praise or criticize? what objectives can we set for ourselves as a lesson from this report? NOTHING!!! because it has told us nothing.

It's all down to oil exploration and export so it is expected as Ghana only recently discovered and exporting oil, no big deal. The major contributor to Ghana's growth is oil which would taper out when investment in oil exploration gets to full capacity. Naija's growth is driven mainly by the non-oil sector.

The things we have (wealth, talents, knowledge,etc) are God's gift to us, the way we live our lives is our gift to Him and Nigeria will determine what we make of those blessings/gifts God has invested us with. God bless Nigeria. All the best to ghana.

I pity Ghana. Oil money messes economies up, save sophisticated ones like Norway or royalties in the middle east.
Begore their legislators would be grappling with budgets far far less than Rivers or Lagos (these two states have
annual budgets close to $4billion each). But when Ghana's government starts to grappple with $5billion budgets you
go fear kleptocracy cos everybody eye go open and a terrible feeling of entitlement would creep in.

Ghana's economy is small and with oil exploration (it takes $100million to drill one exploration well), their GDP is bound
to go up. But unless they build refineries and local capacity, that sector would not produce enough jobs.

So this news is relative.

Syenite:

Rubbishhh.Fastest growing econonomy my foot.

What do they produce and export?

What has been their contribution to the global market?

How many Ghanaian companies can you find in other West African countries Nigeria inclusive?

How developed is their financial market?

How developed is their manufacturing sector?

Just because they started producing oil in minute quantity only yesterday, you come here to taunt Nigerians.

Bunch of blind over-patriotic morons!

My friend, stop talking like an illiterate. A country does not have to be the largest economy before it can be the fastest growing. China was growing very fast in the 1980s-1990s even while they did not have many companies in other countries like they do now.
Dubai has made a huge progress despite the fact that they do not produce/manufacture many things and their stock market is not among the top in the world. What matters is creating an environment for both SMEs and Multinational companies to thrive.Dubai used tourism to transform their country.

Ghana has been making efforts to improve their country/economy by ensuring stable power/political environment/education/security/peace. Nigeria lacks all these desirable features.
And if I may let you know, Ghana has a more diversified economy than Nigeria, they are the :
1. 2nd Largest producer/exporter of Cocoa in the world (after Cote d Voire)
2.2nd Larget prodcucer/exporter of Gold in Africa (after S/Africa)and one of the largest in the world
3.One of the larget producers of Diamond, Bauxite, and Timber
4. They have just discovered oil in commercial quantity.

Ghana was the richest colony in British West Africa (during the colonial era) and that is why the British made it their adminsitrative capital. They were rich to the extent that they gave $5m grant to South Korea to help them in development shortly after S.Korea got independence
The exploration of oil in Nigeria in the 60s plus our population were the only factors that  made Nigeria to outshine them in the 70s-80s especially at a period when their economy went down. Otherwise, Ghana had always been ahead of us:

1,They got independence b4 Nigeria
2.They had Military Academy b4 Nigeria(some of our best Military officers were trained at the Ghana Defence Academy at Teshie, Ghana)
3.They were ahead of us in Sports (especially Football and Athletics)
4. They brought and taught Nigerians our first classical music, Highlife(even right now, our musicians are imitating the Ghanaian Hiplfie rhythms) Just listen to musicians like Duncan Mighty, etc,
5.They had the biggest dam in the World at a time(Akosombo dam which has the capacity to provide electricity to the whole West Africa, including Nigeria).
6. They had ther vision to build an oil refinery even before Nigeria(an oil producing nation) could build one. Their refinery at Tema is older than all our 4 refineries and is still working while our 4 refineries are dead.
7.They had a visionary leader like Kwame Nkrumah who provided leadership to the whole of Africa. Infact Ghana was the political headquarters of the struggle against colonial rule in Africa. Even the great Nnamdi Azikwe worked there as a journalist at the early stage of his career?)
8. They acted as a mature/responsible brother/neighbour to help us resolve the Biafra war. Do you know about the Aburi Accord?


, All these things were achieved in the 50s-60s, long before Nigeria became an economic force in the 70s as a result of oil boom.

In in contemporary history, market women in Ghana had been using GSM for more than 6 years (almost a decade) before Nigeria had GSM

We need to respect people who make progress with what they have.

I have never been to Ghana but I have relatives married to Ghanaians, friends who are half Ghanaian half Nigerian. Anytime they visit Ghana, they always have something very good to say.

During my MSc dissertation as well which focused on West African economy using Nigeria and Ghana as case study since they had the biggest economy in west Africa in terms of GDP, part of my research involved obtaining data on road traffic accidents and the also the frame work in which FRSC and the Ghanaian road traffic agent use. while the Ghanaian officials were very willing to help and provided me with so much information needed, the FRSC did not even acknowledge my emails not to talk of reply.lol.

I finally got some scanty info about FRSC from the US DOT. After the research, I was amazed at how far Ghana had gone in terms of research and development compared to Nigeria. Then I realised that Nigeria was just living in past glory. No wonder Obama recently visited Ghana instead of Nigeria.

Got info on Nigeria

congrats ghana

Umunede:

I am a Nigerian working and living in Ghana. I was initially afraid when I was tranfered from Nigeria to Ghana Jan last year. I have gone to almost all the 10 regions of Ghana and i can tell you that Ghana is getter than 9ja now for 3 major reasons
PEACE and SECURITY- This is attracting alot of investments for them.
CONSTANT POWER-Imagine how life will be after a hard days work, you come back home and there is electricity. People dont use gen here. Even most organisations, hotels, filling stations etc dont have gen. They dont need them because there is always power. I know how much I spend on fuel for my gen in 9ja every month. Here, that amount is like an extra income to me. Even call rate is much cheaper here because telecom companies dont buy diesel to power their sites. They use electricity. Call rate here is as low as 6 naira per mins. The maximun call rate is 10 naira. Even cyber cafe 80 naira per hour. I pay 20 ghana cedis(2000 naira) for electricity bill for my 1 bedroom flat almost the same thing I pay in 9ja when I hardly see the light in 9ja while here in Ghana is 24 hours.
BAD LEADERSHIP- MP(members of parliament) in Ghana receives 4000 Ghana Cedis(400,000 naira) every month while a Senator in Nigeria makes 9.9million naira every month. The MPs are clamouring for increase to 7000 Ghana cedis(700,000 naira). Nigeria cannot grow with this bad leaders we have feeding themselves fat while the common man on the street keep wallowing in poverty.

My brother! I just entered Accra this morning - for the first time. I fitn't shout.

You know, one Yankee woman was once asked to nominate someone for the Time Magazine's Person of the Year award. She quickly suggested the inventor of the washing machine. An obvious need of hers must be washing!

Omo, one very outstanding thing here (for me) na the INTERNET speed. My Visafone modem in Naija has a max speed of about 8KB/s - on the occasional special moments when Uncle Ovia is smiling down on me. Right now, in my hotel room, am doing more than 250+KB/s (for the tech-heads: e be like na wetin I see o). Before you type 'ww' finish website don open, videos dey load finish dey wait for you to meet up.

Bought online SEO video courses last with a combined time of more than 30 hours just last week. Been able to view less than 5 mins of the whole thing untill today.

This place might not be New York, yes, but you get the feeling they are very organized. Ama so gonna get a second crib here sharp-sharp. !