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· The 26th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#26) concluded recently (Tuesday) with a resolution from the participants to pool resources to develop partnerships for building a resilient economy for the country
· The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said earlier that the country was slipping into a second recession after contracting consecutively for the first and second quarters of the year
· The finance minister assured that the government was taking pre-emptive steps for sustained interventions to pull the economy out of recession earlier than anticipated
The 26th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#26) concluded recently (Tuesday) with a resolution from the participants to pool resources to develop partnerships for building a resilient economy for the country. The participants were drawn from the public and private sectors as well as sub-nationals.
The two-day annual event was organized by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning. The theme of the summit was Building Partnerships for Resilience.
Nigerian Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed and Youth and Sports Minister Sunday Dare, gave their commitments to mobilize available resources, including those for the youth, toward speedy recovery of the country’s economy. Ms Ahmed said that the government would pursue the early exit of the country’s economy from the current recession.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said earlier that the country was slipping into a second recession after contracting consecutively for the first and second quarters of the year. Coming second in the last five years, it is creating a lot of consternation among the businessmen and general public at large. The second contraction from -6.1 per cent in the first quarter to -3.62 per cent in the second quarter was largely due to continued negative impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic. For the three quarters combined for 2020, aggregate GDP decline was now 2.60 percent.
The finance minister assured that the government was taking pre-emptive steps for sustained interventions to pull the economy out of recession earlier than anticipated.
Ms Ahmed said the economy would be restored to the path of sustainable inclusive growth by fast tracking using the implementation of the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan. Nigeria’s GDP recorded a negative growth of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020. She added that negative growth of 3.62 per cent in the third quarter of 2020 is much better than the -6.01 per cent earlier forecasted by the NBS. The Nigerian economy, she said, was experiencing sustained growth which has been improving quarter by quarter for 3 years until the 2nd quarter of 2020 when the impact of the covid -19 was felt.
