Non-oil Continues To Under-perform, As Oil Lifts Nigeria’s 2017 GDP To 0.83%
In what shows the compelling need to fast-track the diversification of Nigeria’s economy and free it from the vagaries of the oil sector, the 2017Q4 data for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) revealed that the economy grew by 1.92%, from -1.73% and 1.4% in the 2017Q3, still driven by the sector, which contributes up to 75% of federally collected revenue. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday, the Q4 numbers helped 2017 full-year GDP to a 0.83% growth, 2.42% better when compared to the 1.58% contraction in 2016. Real non-oil GDP growth for the year stood at 0.47%, as Q4 recorded 1.45%, up from 0.76% in the 2017Q3; while oil GDP for the period climbed by 4.79%, after soaring by 8.48% in 2017Q4, which was slower than the 25.89% achieved in the prior quarter. Reacting to the numbers, analysts at Cordros Capital noted that “the growth estimate came in 8 basis points and 34 bps lower than Bloomberg’s compiled average estimate of 2.0% and Cor...