Nigeria’s GDP grows by 0.51% amid uncertainty in investment market

AMIDST uncertainty in the investment market, Nigeria’s economy grew marginally in the first quarter as the gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.51 per cent to consolidate on the 0.11 per cent growth in the previous quarter.

It is far less than the 1.87 per cent growth recorded in Q1 of 2020, showing that the economy is far from returning to pre-Covid-19 performance.

The economy exited recession in quarter four (Q4) of last year when the economy recorded 0.11 growth on the back of the modest performance of telecommunications.

The GDP data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) this evening show slow but gradual growth in the economy held back by structural defects but exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The moderate growth posted in Q1 2020 was driven majorly by the resilience of the non-oil sector, which expanded by 0.79 per cent as against 1.69 recorded in Q4 of 2020 and 1.55 per cent achieved in the comparative period of last year.

Despite the bullish outlook, the oil sector took a dip, contracting by 2.21 per cent to obstruct the growth momentum. The contraction is mild compared to -19.76 per cent the sector posted in Q4 of 2020 but a far cry from the 5.06 per cent growth posted in the comparative quarter (Q1 2020).

The report said the country’s oil production during the period stood at 1.72 million barrels per day (MBPD) on average whereas 1.56 MBPD was recorded the previous quarter. The production volume is still less than the pre-Covid-19 1.81MBPD.

The current data showed that agriculture’s real GDP grew by 2.28 per cent compared to 3.42 per cent growth recorded in Q4 2020 and2.2 per cent posted in Q1 2020 just industry real GDP grew by 0.94 per cent.

Nominal GDP is growth at current prices while real GDP is an inflation-adjusted growth.

Cement, a subsector of the industry, gained 11.2 per cent to emerge as one of the best performing sectors. You will recall that prices of cement jumped by over 70 per cent recently, pushing the cost of construction.