Fastest Growing Countries in Asia : With Reasonable Governance and GDP and Population Data Quality| World Economics

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Fastest Growing Countries in Asia

With Reasonable Governance and GDP and Population Data Quality

Last updated: 2 July 2024

The quality of economic data, and in particular GDP data, is of considerable importance. A number of countries produce GDP data of such poor quality that it is of little value in determining the size and growth of economic activity. World Economics reviews quarterly GDP and Population data quality for 155+ countries.

Governance is also of great importance. Research shows that countries with little respect for the rule of law, political rights and press freedom, tend to manipulate economic data in ways they see as favourable to themselves. Countries run by dictators have been shown to exaggerate annual economic growth by 30% or more.

The table below shows the 14 Asian countries we believe to have reasonable Governance and produce believable GDP and Population data.

Fastest Growing Countries in Asia
With reasonable governance, GDP and population data quality

* CAGR is calculated from the World Economics GDP Database, see methodology

Governance is rated by the World Economics Governance Ratings. These indicators include Corruption Perception Levels, Rule of Law, Press Freedom, and Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Data for each component is transformed into a scale of 0-100 to gauge relative performance with other countries. For the Governance Index a score towards zero indicates a negative or bad performance, whilst a score tending towards 100 indicates a positive or good performance on the scale. See full Methodology. Only countries with a governance grades of A, B or C are included in these growth rankings.

GDP data quality is graded by the World Economics GDP Data Quality Ratings. The Ratings cover five factors to determine GDP data quality: GDP base year, SNA framework, informal economy size, resources devoted to measuring economic activity and measures for government interference. Each factor is evaluated to provide country scores which are then normalised using the standard deviation of the data for each factor and combined into the DQR score using a weighted aggregate to reflect the importance of each of the individual factors. See full Methodology. Only countries with a GDP Data Quality Rating of A, B or C are included in these growth rankings.

Population data quality is graded by the World Economics Population Data Quality Ratings. The ratings cover three factors: Census year, Statistical capacity and Registration of live births. Each factor is evaluated and combined into the Population Data Quality Index using a weighted aggregate to reflect the importance of each of the individual factors. See full Methodology. Only countries with a Population Data Quality Rating of A, B or C are included in these growth rankings.