Today, China’s riches is the kind of eye-watering wealth many in the West and developing nations cannot comprehend. But this was not the case a few years ago. Many of the wealthiest experienced years of relentless poverty and there is still poverty in China, but further from the plummeting rate of impoverishment which many countries, including Nigeria, are enveloped in. Although, some say due to its high population and few natural resources they are not wealthy by Western standard. Regardless of the opinions flying around, there is great evidence that China has managed to feed and cloth 1.4 billion people, provided college-education for students and jobs for graduates and experts.

The Chinese implemented economic reforms after refining several policies, one of which controlled their population size. They invested heavily in infrastructure and education, especially in the science and technology sectors, encouraged their young students to seek education in more advanced countries and stayed out of foreign disputes.

That being so, what is the driving force for China’s economic growth?

China is a large agricultural and construction country with many factories. Savings and Capital investments, another source of its wealth accounts for a large proportion of its GDP and the former is the basic working capacity of its people. China is rich today due to its self-sufficient economy of a billion people and numerous cheap exports that the rest of the world purchases. Its own productivity created value. This to me is the engine room of china’s wealth. Aside from other circumstances which contributed to its wealth, the economy was structured to manufacture its own goods and provide its own services, instead of importing merchandise or workforce from the west. This is to say that within the economy, money comes from the Chinese and stays within the Chinese people.

New bills and improved policies paved the way for the china we recognise today. The Chinese government operates a somewhat closed economy which prevents western influence. They made sure to rival products and services offered by the west with unique or duplicate creations and innovations. Without a choice or very minimal selection, these improvements allowed the common man to patronise his follow country man. For example, the worlds most used applications such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Tinder, Amazon and Uber are replaced with Wechat, Alibaba, Sina Weibo, Youku Tudou, Baidu Tiebu, Momo, Tencent QQ and DiDi. The idea was to offer locally made commodities, products and services to its high population, where money exchanges hands within countrymen, thereby increasing competition and wealth amongst its growing populace. This concept made the Chinese people extremely industrious. Hence, working around the clock has become a norm. So much so that business is frequently intertwined with personal and social life.

An extremely hardworking people therefore paved way for China to become the highest exporting country in the world. China’s self-sufficiency was what brought them out of abject poverty and up the charts to the top five wealthiest nation on the globe. Today the country is described as “The Destructive Miracle” seeing that it fell into a “great depression”, a time when children suffered from hypoglycaemia caused by long-term starvation.

Nigeria can learn a thing or two from the strict reforms enacted by the Chinese government if we truly intend to make her a greater nation. In china, if you want to become a billionaire, you must start your own business. This is to say that government officers should also encourage entrepreneurship by building all kinds of manufacturing outlets. For example, a state system can provide an outlet for farm produce, textile, cables and wires, leather, aluminum, lumber, etc. By considering the above mentioned, entrepreneurship would certainly reach its full potential.

The Nigerian government has to build more industries, which would help produce made in Nigeria goods (MINGs) on a larger scale. It will enable the residence to patronise these locally made products and in turn retain the country’s wealth. When inhabitants cannot find foreign products on shelves to purchase, majority of the people will have no choice but to buy locally made goods. If we intend to disassociate ourselves from the enemy that is poverty, importation of raw materials, products, services and knowledge must be significantly reduced, while quality control, assessments, assistance and maintenance must be given utmost relevance, since they are issues of great importance.

To sum it all, for Nigeria to become a self-sufficient country, needing no outside help to satisfy the basic needs, the country has to undergo rapid industrialisation, which only leads to abundant resources. The government has to invest heavily on industrial infrastructures, as “highly developed functioning industries” is a more feasible way to attain independence, economic growth on a wider scale.

God Bless Nigeria

X pj.