Nigeria’s second quarter GDP fell by more than 2% compared to a year ago, after slipping by 0.4% in the first quarter.
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With Nigeria’s GDP showing a contraction for the second quarter in a row, we can now dispense with the technicalities and say it with our chest, Nigeria is in an economic recession.
The oil- and import-dependent economy declined by 0.36 percent in the first quarter of the year.
The International Monetary Fund said last month the downturn in the Nigerian economy was a primary contributor to contraction in Sub-Saharan Africa, adding the situation in Nigeria, the region’s largest economy, was particularly hard.
“In the Second Quarter of 2016, the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by -2.06% (year-onyear) in real terms”, the NBS revealed.
The National Bureau of Statistics released some dismal numbers as the second quarter of the year draws to an end. The non-oil sector marks its first recession since 2004 while the oil sector marks the third straight negative growth since Q4-2015. Growth declined by 10.68 per cent points and 15.59 per cent points relative to growth in the second quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2016 respectively.
With the mining sector shrinking by 47.9 percent and manufacturing falling by 1.02 percent, the general non-oil sector declined by 0.38 percent.
“Nigeria has had sluggish economic growth since the end of 2015 with the rate dropping to an estimated three per cent in December 2015, leading the authorities to adopt an expansionary 2016 budget that aims to stimulate the economy”, the bank said. This was 2.73% higher than the Second Quarter 2015 value of N22,859,153.01 million.
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had initially predicted that the Nigerian economy will shrink by 1.8 percent in 2016. “For the half year it stands at -1.23% compared to an average of -1.80% expected on average by the IMF”, Adeyemi Dipeolu, economic adviser to the Nigerian president, said in a statement shortly after the report was released.
