…NIGERIA’S ECONOMY SHRINKS BY 6% IN Q2
AMINA HUSSAINI
Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrunk by six percent in the second quarter of 2020, technically pushing the country into recession.
A new report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which was released on Monday, said Nigeria’s Oil GDP contracted by -6.63 percent from 5.06 percent in the first quarter of 2020 and 5.15 percent in the second of 2019.
It added that the non-oil GDP also contracted by -6.05 percent from 1.55 percent in the first quarter of 2020 and 1.64 percent in the second quarter of 2019.
The NBS report stated that the decline was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activity during the quarter, which resulted from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NBS stated that the real GDP declined by –2.18 percent year on year for the first half of 2020, compared with 2.11 percent recorded in the first half of 2019.
“Quarter on quarter, real GDP decreased by. –5.04 percent. Furthermore, only 13 activities recorded positive real growth compared to 30 in the preceding quarter.
“In the quarter under review, aggregate GDP stood at N34,023,197.60 million in nominal terms, or -2.8 percent lower than the second quarter of 2019 which recorded an aggregate of N35,001,877.95 million.
“Overall, the nominal growth rate was –16.81 percent points lower than recorded in the second quarter of 2019, and –14.81 percent points lower than recorded in the first quarter of 2020,” the Bureau said.
Nigeria had during the first term of President Muhammadu Buhari in late 2016 gone into recession.
The country came out of the recession after five quarters of negative GDPs in early 2018.
Economies of most western and european countries have also shrunk due to the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and massive drop in crude oil prices in the first and second quarter of this year.
Tope Fasua, an economist and CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Limited, an international consulting firm with its headquarters in Abuja, said Nigeria was technically in recession.
Fasua, who spoke with our correspondent on Monday, said the country will have to wait for the results of the next quarter if it would be a negative or positive growth.
“It is not unexpected going by the events of the year 2020. We have experienced collapse in oil prices coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The global economies were shut down for several months. Nigeria and many countries, even developed countries, will he affected.
“Technically, we at in recession as the GDP declined by over 6%. A decline in GDP by more than five percent implies recession technically,” said Fasua, who was the Presidential candidate for Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party ANRP in 2019
Comments are closed.