January 2, 2013 By Robert Amsterdam

Is Africa Growing More Than We Thought?

Yes, this is somehow all working.

For several years now I have been singing Africa’s praises as the next big destination for foreign investment – despite the political risks that must be carefully navigated.  Despite some negative trends in some countries (such as Zambia), overall the continent looks like it is prepared to continue the boom.  Here is an interesting excerpt from an article published in the Financial Times by Sebastian Malleby of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Two years ago, Ghana corrected an error in its gross domestic product statistics – and the estimated size of its economy shot up by more than 60 per cent. Its mistake had been to count activity only in well-established sectors, omitting new ones such as mobile telephony. It seems likely that this error exists elsewhere. A forthcoming revision in Nigeria could be as dramatic as Ghana’s, boosting the GDP estimate for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa by as much as 15 per cent.