Nigeria placed 42nd in the index’s top fifty most globalised developing nations category far behind Botswana that emerged third most globalised developing nation. However, Nigeria ranked better than two of the five other African countries that featured on the index’s top fifty list. Nigeria trailed Senegal, Uganda, and Tunisia who all ranked 40, 38 and 35 respectively. Nigeria however emerged more globalised than South Africa and Morocco who ranked 49 and 47 respectively.

Among the countries classified as developing, Botswana was ranked number three, after Malaysia and Panama, who on the global list ranked 20 and 27 respectively. This year Botswana was once again ranked number one in Africa, moving up three spots to achieve a world ranking of 30th most globalised nation in the world, just below Japan’s 29th position.

On the international scene, the survey showed that for the third year consecutive year, Ireland was ranked as the world’s most globalised nation, followed by Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Finland. The report which is however based on data compiled for 2002, the year for which the latest relevant statistics were available, found that global economic integration had actually declined in 2002 in the wake of the world economic slowdown in 2001.

The report further highlights that around the world foreign direct investments (FDI), the investment of foreign assets into domestic structures, equipment and organisations, already down some 40 percent in 2001, fell another 21 percent in 2002 to $651 billion, while global flows of portfolio capital also dropped significantly.

Overall, economic integration measures dropped to their lowest levels since 1998, according to the index. But when political, technological and personal contact and communication variables were taken into account, the Index found that overall globalization actually increased in 2002. Among other factors, it tracked strong gains in trans-border telephone use and Internet connectivity, particularly in a number of developing countries, which pointed to the resiliency of trends that promote greater global integration.

Rankings on the Index are determined by the combined score of a dozen weighted variables covering economic, personal, technological and political categories. Economic variables include the percentage of trade as a share of the country’s gross domestic product GDP, inward and outward FDI and other portfolio investment, and international income payments and receipts as shares of GDP.

Personal variables cover the number of minutes of international phone calls, the number of travelers per capita, and remittances from expatriate workers as a share of GDP. Technological variables include the percentage of the population with Internet access and the number of Internet hosts and secure servers in the country. Also political variables include the participation in international organisations, peace keeping missions and other international contacts, as well as issues of transparency and good governance.

The Index ranked Botswana number one in the world in terms of government transfers. The Index also ranked Europe as the world’s most integrated regions. It was followed by North America and East Asia. The least integrated regions were South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The Index is a joint project of Foreign Policy magazine and the AT Kearney, one of the world’s largest management consulting firms.

Source: Businessdayonline (BusinessDAY Media Ltd)