Graph: Africa - GDP per capita

From an earlier post, there are a number of African countries with GDP per capita higher than the mean (i.e. the countries above the mean line in the graph below) that we did not look at. 

Data Source: World Bank

Zooming into these countries, we can see which of the African countries have the highest GDP per capita.

Data Source: World Bank

The economies of many of these countries are dominated by the oil & gas industry (e.g. Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Algeria, Angola, Republic of Congo) or natural resources (e.g. Namibia). Other countries rely on tourism (e.g. Seychelles, Mauritius), while others have more diversified economies (e.g. South Africa, Tunisia, Cape Verde). Many of these are also countries that have small populations (e.g. Seychelles: 87,000; Cape Verde: 0.5m; Mauritius: 1.3m; Gabon: 1.5m) or uncertain population numbers (e.g. Equatorial Guinea: 0.7m estimated, but other estimates range up to 1.2m). 

Of course, these countries may also have high income disparities, so the poverty levels can still be quite high there.

Data Source: World Bank; Graphs: Generated by me; Country Sources: CIA – The World Factbook

Graph: Africa - GDP and Governance

This graph shows the governance score for the top 20 African countries (by GDP). The scores range from around -2.5 to 2.5, with higher values corresponding to better governance.

Data Source: World Bank

We can see that the countries with scores close to or greater than zero are South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius. Coupled with the findings from a previous post on population, GDP and GDP per capita, it seems that only South Africa appears in both charts, i.e. having high population / GDP / GDP per capita, as well as having a good governance score. Further analysis could look at these countries with good governance scores and evaluate other parameters and hence their potential for profitable investments.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me

Graph: Africa – Population and GDP

This graph shows the GDP and population of the African countries, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point).

Data Source: World Bank

The chart might be useful in terms of thinking about which African countries are doing well economically to invest in – High GDP implies a strong economy; High Population implies a potential large domestic market; High GDP per capita implies a high spending power of the population (assuming the income gap is not too high, which may not be the case).

On these counts, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola and Morocco could be potential countries for investors to take another look at. Of course, there is the issue of corporate governance or political stability, which would be looked at in a subsequent post.

South Africa’s 2010 GDP (US$364bn) places it as the top African country with the highest GDP, but the 28^th country in the world. In terms of GDP per capita, South Africa (US$7,275) is ranked 66^th in the world. As a comparison, the 2010 GDP per capita for various countries are: US: US$47,199; France: US$39,640; Malaysia: US$8,373; China: US$4,428.

South Africa is not doing too badly on these counts.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me