Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo

The National Bureau of Statistics NBS has said that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product GDP recorded a growth rate of 0.55 per cent in the second quarter of 2017, an indication that the country’s economy is no longer in recession.

This contradicts Federal Government’s earlier projection that the country might get out of recession in the fourth quarter of the year.

The nation’s economy had slipped into recession in early 2016 following its contraction for two consecutive quarters amidst some economic policies experts believed were not properly thought out and implemented.

According to statistics released by the bureau for the second quarter of 2017, the GDP recorded a growth rate of 0.55 per cent (year-on-year), which is 2.04 per cent higher than the -1.49 per cent rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2016.

This is also higher by 1.46 per cent points from rate recorded in the preceding quarter, which was revised to –0.91 per cent from –0.52% due to revisions to crude output for March 2017.

The NBS also reports that Nigeria’s economic recovery was driven principally by the performance of four main economic activities comprising oil, agriculture, manufacturing and international trade.

Details of the report show that the contribution of the petroleum industry to the GDP increased significantly from -11.63 per cent in Q2 2016 and -15.40 per cent in Q1 2017 and further to 1.64 per cent in Q2 2017.

“But despite the increase in the contribution of the oil sector to the GDP in the second quarter of 2017, the non-oil sector’s contribution to the GDP  grew at 0.45 per cent, down from 0.72 per cent recorded  in the preceding quarter and -0.38 in the corresponding period in 2016”, the NBS said.

The records also indicate that the agricultural sector continued its strong and positive growth, which grew consistently during the period of recession to 3.01 per cent in Q2 2017, from 3.39 per cent in Q1 2017 and 4.53 per cent in Q2 2016.

Similarly, the real sector retained its positive growth consecutively for first and second quarter of 2017, growing at 0.64 per cent compared to 1.36 per cent in Q1 2017 and -3.36 per cent in Q2 2016, while trade which has a dominant share of GDP remained negative at -1.62 per cent, but the contraction in the sector decelerated from the -3.08 per cent recorded in Q1 2017.

The NBS also said: ”As a percentage of GDP, services retained the giant share of GDP at 53.73 per cent in Q2 2017, down by 1.94 per cent points (55.67 per cent) from the first quarter of 2017 and 54.80 per cent in Q2 2016; industries accounted for 23.31 per cent of GDP, compared to 22.90 recorded in Q1 2017 and 22.65 per cent in Q1 2016; while agriculture accounted for 22.97 per cent of GDP in the quarter under review, compared to 21.43 per cent in Q1 2017 and 22.55 per cent in Q2 2016”.

Electricity and gas and financial institutions sectors also recorded strong growths, with electricity and gas growing by 35.5 per cent, compared to -5.04 per cent in Q1 2017 and -10.46 per cent in Q2 2016 and financial institutions growing by 11.78 per cent in Q2 2017, compared to 0.60 per cent in Q1 2017 and -13.24 per cent in Q2 2016.

It was also gathered that the industrial sector grew positively by 1.45 per cent in Q2 2017, after nine consecutive quarters of negative growth since Q4 2014.