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· The official figures released recently (Saturday) suggest that the oil-rich Nigeria is caught in the rattrap of recession for the second time in four years driven by the ill-effects of the coronavirus pandemic and falling oil prices
· Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that the third-quarter 2020 real GDP contracted for the second consecutive quarter by 3.62 per cent . The Cumulative GDP for the first nine months of 2020 was at -2.48 percent
· The International Monetary Fund’s estimate is that the Nigerian economy would shed a 5.4-percent this year
· But the government maintained that the economy may shrink by 8.9 percent.
The official figures released recently (Saturday) suggest that the oil-rich Nigeria is caught in the rattrap of recession for the second time in four years driven by the ill-effects of the coronavirus pandemic and falling oil prices. Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that the third-quarter 2020 real GDP contracted for the second consecutive quarter by 3.62 per cent . The Cumulative GDP for the first nine months of 2020 was at -2.48 percent.
Because of the slide in oil prices, GDP shrank by 13.89 percent as against 6.63 in the second quarter, the third-quarter report of the NBS pointed out. Non-oil GDP declined by 2.51 percent over the same period as against 6.05 percent in the second quarter. The West African country’s economy has already contracted by six percent. Since 2016, the Nigerian economy has been passing through a difficult phase because of the slide in the oil prices, which got exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The International Monetary Fund’s estimate is that the Nigerian economy would shed 5.4-percent this year. But the government maintained that the economy may shrink by 8.9 percent.
Nigeria, on an average, produces two million barrels of oil per day. The Covid-19 pandemic and low oil prices have resulted in reducing production to around 1.4 million barrels.
