Despite technically exiting recession in the second quarter of 2017, Nigeria’s economy seems not out of the woods as it recorded worse growth during the first quarter of 2018 than in fourth quarter of 2017.
According to GDP report for first quarter of 2018 released on Monday, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 1.95% (year-on-year) in real terms in the first quarter of 2018.
Although NBS explained that this shows a stronger growth when compared with the first quarter of 2017 which recorded a growth of –0.91% indicating an increase of 2.87% points, it, however, noted that when compared to the preceding quarter, there was a decline of –0.16% points from 2.11%.
“Quarter on quarter, real GDP growth was –13.40%.”
An economy is in recession if it records two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Still, on the first quarter of 2018, aggregate GDP stood at N28,464,322.01million in nominal terms.
This performance is higher when compared to the first quarter of 2017 which recorded a nominal GDP aggregate of N26,028,356.03 million thus, presenting a positive year on year nominal growth rate of 9.36%.
This rate of growth is, however, lower relative to growth recorded in Q1 2017 by –7.70% points at 17.06% but higher than the proceeding quarter by 2.14% points at 7.22%.
To give a clearer depiction, the Nigerian economy has been classified broadly into the oil and non-oil sectors.
In the period under review, the nation recorded an average daily oil production of 2.0 million barrels per day (mbpd), higher than the daily average production recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017 by 0.05 mbpd and Real growth of the oil sector was 14.77% (year-on-year) in Q1 2018.
This represents an increase of 30.37% points relative to rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2017.
Quarter-on-Quarter, the oil sector grew by 13.24% in Q1 2018. The Oil sector contributed 9.61% to total real GDP in Q1 2018, up from 8.53% and 7.35% recorded in the Q1 2017 and Q4 2017, respectively.
The non-oil sector grew by 0.76% in real terms during the reference quarter.
This is higher by 0.04% point compared to the rate recorded same quarter of 2017 and 0.70% point lower than the fourth quarter of 2017.
This sector was driven mainly by Agriculture (Crop production); other drivers were Financial institutions and insurance, Manufacturing, Transportation and Storage and Information and Communication.
In real terms, the Non-Oil sector contributed 90.39% to the nation’s GDP, lower than 91.47% recorded in the first quarter of 2017 and 92.65% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017.
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