Between September 13 and 14, the Commonwealth Trade and Investment Forum took place in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The forum was organised by the Bangladeshi Government in collaboration with the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council to discuss trade and investment ties among and beyond Commonwealth states.
As the host of the forum, special references were made to Bangladesh, the fourth largest Commonwealth state by population. At the event, the investment prospects the South Asian country could offer to other member states were also discussed at length.
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Notably, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), was invited as a keynote speaker to talk on the topic, “SME Formalisation and Internationalisation in the Commonwealth: Empowering Growth and Global Reach”.
In his speech, Obi presented statistical estimates about the economic contribution of SMEs, citing the World Bank as his source. He claimed during his presentation that the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was about $10,700. He also stated that the GDP per capita within the Commonwealth family was $3,500.
CLAIM: The global GDP per capita is about $10,700. The Commonwealth GDP per capita is $3,500.
VERIFICATION: FIJ compared the most recent world GDP per capita as documented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to see if they tallied with Obi’s claims. Per the World Bank, the recently documented GDP per capita of the world stood at $12,647.5. This value was obtained in 2022.
The IMF, on the other hand, states that the GDP per capita of the world is $13,440 in 2023.
The closest the world came to a $10,700 GDP per capita in recent years was in 2017 with about $10,746.9, according to the World Bank.
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Also, the most recently recorded GDP of the commonwealth in 2021, stands at $13.1 trillion. In the same year, the Commonwealth population was estimated to stand at 2.5 billion people.
Considering that GDP per capita is obtained by dividing the GDP by the total population of Commonwealth states, the GDP per capita of the Commonwealth stands at $5,240, according to the Commonwealth website.
CONCLUSION: The world’s GDP per capita is nowhere near $10,700 as claimed by Peter Obi. The most recent obtainable data shows that the world’s GDP per capita is $13,440 and that the Commonwealth’s GDP per capita is about $5,240.
VERDICT: The claim made by Peter Obi that the world’s GDP per capita stands at about $10,700 is false.
