Nigerian Growth Experience: Lessons from the Chinese Model  Oloni,

Oloni, Elizabeth Funlayo; Brimah, Aminu Nassir; Afolabi, Hafsat Olatanwa

Abstract

China has experienced rapid economic growth since 1977 when the country began its reform.
Before this time, the growth in Nigeria was above that of China; but the country has surpassed
Nigeria since early 1980s as it has a constant and steady growth since then. The Nigerian
economic growth kept fluctuating. The paper investigated therefore, the trend in the economic
growth of both countries and the factors that lead to such economic growth in China so as to
apply it to the Nigerian economy. Both descriptive and inferential statistics are used to
investigate this. It was revealed that the Chinese reforms that started in 1977 have led to the
stability in the growth rate of the country. The trend showed that the growth in China is driven
by export and foreign investment. An investigation of these variables on economic growth in
Nigeria has shown that, export had positive but not significant impact on economic growth in
Nigeria. Investment, on the other hand, had positive and significant impact on economic growth.
The public expenditure also had positive and significant impact on economic growth. It is
recommended that the export base should be diversified to have advantage of export driven
growth.