Rapid and quite protracted growth spurts are possible, based not only on expanding exports to the vast global market for goods and services, but also on the availability from neighboring countries or further afield of additional factors of production, whether material inputs, labour or capital.
Each has always been willing to lend a hand working through a tough problem and helping explain to a slower colleague - over-and-over again, in my case. They have been active recruiters and mentors to generations of economists, leading as much by example as by the particular position they happened to occupy in the staff bureaucracy.