The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that Nigeria’s economy will grow away from a recession in 2017.
Nigeria is currently in a recession after official Data from the country’s bureau of statistic showed that its gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 2.06 percent in the second quarter, sending Africa’s biggest economy into a recession after a decline in the first quarter.
The IMF had predicted that the economy would contract by 1.8 per cent in 2016 but the new reviews are more positive.
According to the new reviews, the current economic recession will outlast 2016, with a gross domestic product (GDP) contraction of 1.7 percent.
“Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economies continue to struggle with lower commodity revenues, weighing on growth in the region.”
“Nigeria’s economy is forecast to shrink 1.7 percent in 2016, and South Africa’s will barely expand. By contrast, several of the region’s non resource exporters, including Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Senegal, are expected to continue to grow at a robust pace of more than 5 percent this year.”
The country was last in a recession, for less than a year, in 1991, and experienced a prolonged one that started in 1982 and last until 1984.
The government has so far disbursed more than 700 billion naira in capital expenditure this year, part of a record 6.06 trillion naira ($30 billion) budget for 2016.
