Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Monday published the outcome of its economic rebasing, estimating the country’s adjusted real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) actually grew by 3.38%, a marginal increase from the previous 3.37%.
The country’s economy was last rebased 14 years ago in 2014, when it was N80tr.
Consequently, the report put nominal GDP at N372.82tr in 2024, an increase of 35.4% over the previous estimate.
According to the report, the country’s GDP base year was adjusted from 2010 to 2019, following which it released new figures from 2019 to 2023, taking changes in the economy’s structure in the period into account, incuding sectoral contributions, and data sources.
The report also revealed that Nigeria’s rebased nominal GDP rose by 41.7% above the initial estimate, bringing the figure for the pre-pandemic year to N205.09tr; while that of 2020 still increased 39% above the initial amount to N213.64tr.
In 2021, the worth of the country’s economy was estimated at N243.3tr, bigger than the previous value by 38.7%; followed in 2022 by N274.23tr, up by 36.1% from the previous figure. This following year’s GDP figure was also adjusted to N314.02tr, an improvement of 34.6% over what initially given as the size of Africa’s most populous nation.
As expected, the latest NBS data for the period showed the economy was in far worse state than the 1.94% previous estimated in 2020, the year many economies were heavily constrained due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus pandemic that year. NBS says the country’s GDP actually crashed to 6.96% that year; and that at 0.96%, economic recovery was much slower than the 3.4% reported in 2021.
By the following year, delivered a robust 4.32% growth, contrary to the 3.1% reported at the time; followed by an equally more significant growth of 3.04% than the 2.71% previous painted.
There was equally a marked shift in economic structure, with the weight allocated to agriculture raised to 25.83%, up from 22.12%; just as Services got 53.09%, compared to the previous 50.22%.
The weight assigned to Industry was reduced to 21.08%, from 27.65%.
In its methodology, the NBS said there is now an improvement in Financial Sector Accounting, just as the informal sector share of the overall economy has been increased to 42.5%, from 41.4%.
Going by the rebased data, the NBS said Nigeria’s economy grew at a slower pace in the first quarter of this year, with a real GDP growth of 3.13% year-on-year, compared to 3.76% in the last quarter of 2024.
The oil sector, he added, grew by 1.87% y/y in the period, from 2.08% y/y between October and December 2024, a situation that was made was by the equally constrained 3.19% y/y growth in the non-oil sector, compared to the 3.80% y/y growth reported in the preceding quarter.
