Nigeria’s economy grows by 2.27% ― NBS

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Monday, released its 2019 Gross Domestic Product report which showed that the economy recorded a 2.27 per cent growth in the year.

The report also showed that the economy grew by 2.55 per cent (year-on-year) in the last quarter of the year.

According to the NBS, “The strong fourth quarter 2019 growth rate also represented the highest quarterly growth performance since the 2016 recession. Overall, this resulted in annual 2019 real growth rate of 2.27 per cent, compared to 1.91 per cent in 2018. Quarter on quarter, real GDP growth was 5.59 per cent.”

The report added, “In Q4 2019, aggregate GDP stood at N39,577,340.04 million in nominal terms. This was higher than the fourth quarter of 2018 which recorded an aggregate of N35,230,607.63 million, representing year on year nominal growth rate of 12.34 per cent.”

According to the NBS, in the fourth quarter of 2019, average daily oil production stood at 2 million barrels per day (mbpd), “indicating a rise of 0.09mbpd over the daily average production of 1.91 mbpd recorded in the same quarter of 2018. However, it was –0.04mbpd lower than the production volume of 2.04mbpd recorded in the third quarter of 2019. Nevertheless, it is notable that oil production remained consistently at or above 2.0mbpd all through 2019.”

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It added: “Real growth of the oil sector was 6.36 per cent (year-on-year) in Q4 2019 indicating an increase of 7.98 per cent points relative to the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2018. Growth decreased by –0.13 per cent points when compared to Q3 2019 which was 6.49 per cent. Quarter-on-Quarter, the oil sector recorded a growth rate of –20.87 per cent in Q4 2019. On an annual basis, oil recorded 4.59 per cent growth in 2019, higher compared to 0.97 per cent recorded in 2018. The Oil sector contributed 7.32 per cent to total real GDP in Q4 2019, up from figures recorded in the corresponding period of 2018 but down compared to the preceding quarter, where it contributed 7.06 per cent and 9.77 per cent respectively. Oil contributed 8.78 per cent to real GDP in 2019.”

In its report on the Non-Oil Sector, NBS stated that “The non-oil sector grew by 2.26 per cent in real terms during the reference quarter (Q4 2019). This was lower by –0.44 per cent points compared to the rate recorded in the same quarter of 2018 but 0.42 per cent point higher than the third quarter of 2019. This sector was driven, during the fourth quarter of 2019, mainly by Information and Communication (Telecommunications), Agriculture (Crop Production), Financial and Insurance Services (Financial Institutions), and Manufacturing. In real terms, the Non-Oil sector contributed 92.68 per cent to the nation’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2019, lower from shares recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018 (92.94 per cent) but higher than the third quarter of 2019 (90.23 per cent). The annual contribution of the non-Oil sector stood at 91.22 per cent in 2019.”