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Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate slowed to 2.98 percent, in the first quarter of the year (Q1 2024), compared to 3.46 percent in the preceding quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Saturday.
The growth was however, higher compared to the 2.31 percent recorded Q1 2023.
According to the Nigerian GDP Report Q1 2024, released by the statistical agency, in the quarter under review, aggregate GDP stood at N58.86 trillion in nominal terms compared to N51.24 trillion in Q1 2023, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 14.86 percent.
Growth Breakdown
Growth was driven mainly by the services sector, which recorded a growth of 4.32 percent and contributed 58.04 percent to aggregate GDP.
The non-oil sector contributed 93.62 percent to growth in real terms, lower than 95.30 percent in the preceding quarter as well as 93.79 percent in Q1 2023.
The sector grew by 2.80 percent in real terms during the reference quarter compared to 0.28 percent in Q4.
On the other hand, the oil sector contributed 6.38 percent to the economy in Q1 compared to 4.70 percent in Q4 and 6.21 percent in Q1 2023.
The real growth of the oil sector was 5.70 percent (year-on-year) in Q1, indicating an increase of 9.91 percent when compared to -4.21 percent in the corresponding quarter.
Oil sector growth also decreased by 6.41 percent compared to 12.11 percent in Q4 2023.
However, quarter-on-quarter basis, the oil sector recorded a growth rate of 13.77 percent in the review period.
In Q1, average daily oil production rose to 1.57 million barrels per day (mbpd), compared to 1.55 mbpd in Q4 and 1.51mbpd in the corresponding quarter of 2023.
According to the report, agriculture contributed 21.07 percent to GDP in real terms in Q1, lower than 26.11 percent in the preceding quarter and 21.66 percent in Q1 2023.
Manufacturing contributed to 9.98 percent to growth in Q1, lower than 8.23 percent in Q4 and 10.13 percent in Q1 2023.
Also, trade contributed to 15.70 percent to GDP, lower than 15.50 percent the preceding quarter as well as 15.97 percent in Q1 2023.
Furthermore, the Art, Entertainment and Recreation sector contributed 0.31 percent to real GDP in Q1 compared to 0.21 percent in the preceding quarter.
Reacting to the GDP figures for Q1, Head, Financial Institutions Ratings at Agusto & Co, Mr. Ayokunle Olubunmi, said the performance may have surpassed expectations given the rate of Naira devaluation within the period in review.
But he said the growth estimates was not good enough given that it was almost at par with population growth rate, adding that the performance would not be enough to catalyse the economy.
He told THISDAY, “Although it looks better it is not good at the same time because if you analyse it, you notice that it is almost at the rate at which the population is growing.”
He also predicted that growth was likely to sluggish in the second quarter.
According to him, “The second quarter, the GDP growth may not be that high. The second quarter is where we had the full impact of the devaluation and economic activities were actually affected.
“However the growth rate it is not significant to catalyse the economy. Given the state of the economy, we need around 4 percent growth.”
