Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is finally out of recession!, according
to NBS.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), who declared Nigeria’s worst
recession in 29 years, said on Tuesday, that the west African country grew
by 0.55 percent in GDP terms for Q2 2017.
According to the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product report released by NBS on
Monday, the economy recorded a positive growth after five consecutive
quarters of contractions since Q1 2016.
The 0.55% growth recorded is 2.04% higher than the rate recorded in the
corresponding quarter of 2016 where a contraction of -1.49% was recorded.
Quarter-on-quarter, real GDP growth was 3.23%.
The oil sector was estimated to have averaged at 1.84 million barrels per
day, which is 0.15 million barrels higher than the daily average
production recorded in the first quarter of June.
The non-oil sector, which was driven by Agriculture, finance & insurance,
electricity, gas, steam and airconditioning supply and other services grew
by 0.45% in real terms.
This is 0.83% higher than the rate recorded in second quarter 2016 and
-0.28% lower than the rate recorded in first quarter of 2017.
Yemi Kale, statistician general, had told Bloomberg in an interview that
there was a likelihood that the economy exited recession in June 2017 but
he was not sure because all the numbers had not been collated.
“Intutively, we might be getting out of recession in the second quarter
but I can’t say until all the numbers are in.”
“If it doesn’t happen in the second quarter, it will be a much reduced
negative and it will definitely happen in the third quarter unless we have
a new round of shocks in the later weeks.”