‘Femi Asu
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy,
has entered its second recession
in five years as official figures
published on Saturday show that
the economy shrank again in the
third quarter of this year.
This year’s recession, ocassioned
by the economic fallout of the
COVID-19 pandemic, is worse than
that of 2016.
The National Bureau of Statistics,
in its Gross Domestic Product
report for Q3, said the GDP, the
broadest measure of economic
prosperity, fell by 3.62 in the
three months to September.
Economists consider two
consecutive quarters of shrinking
GDP as the technical definition of
a recession.
For the first time in more than
three years, the Nigerian
economy shrank in the second
quarter of this year as the GDP fell
by 6.10 per cent, compared with a
growth of 1.87 per cent in Q1.
The NBS had said in August that
the economic decline in Q2 was
largely attributable to
significantly lower levels of both
domestic and international
economic activity resulting from
nationwide shutdown efforts
aimed at containing the COVID-19
pandemic.
It said the contraction in Q2
brought to an end the three-year
trend of low but positive real
growth rates recorded since the
2016/17 recession.
The economy, which emerged
from its first recession in 25 years
in Q2 2017 when it posted a 0.7
per cent growth, had continued
its slow recovery since then but
the COVID-19 crisis made things
worse.
In 2016, the economy slipped
into recession in Q2 as the GDP
shrank by 2.1 per cent after
falling by 0.4 per cent in Q1 on
the back of the steep fall in global
crude oil prices and the country’s
production volumes.
Last month, the World Bank
revised its 2020 forecast for
Nigeria’s economy to -4.1 per
cent from its previous projection
of -3.2 per cent, saying the
country’s near-term outlook was
subject to “considerable
uncertainty”.
The bank had said in June that
the collapse in crude oil prices,
coupled with the COVID-19
pandemic, was expected to
“plunge the Nigerian economy
into a severe recession, the worst
since the 1980s”.
https://punchng.com/breaking-nigeria-plunges-into-second-recession-in-five-years/