Nigeria’s GDP declines to 2.98% in Q1 2024, says NBS

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth declined to 2.98per cent, lower than the rate recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023 which was 3.46 per cent, according to the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday. 

However, the GDP growth rate in the quarter is higher than the figure recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2023 which was 2.31 per cent. 

The performance of GDP in the first quarter of 2024 was primarily driven by the services sector, which grew by 4.32 per cent and contributed 58.04% to the overall GDP. The agriculture sector saw a modest growth of 0.18 per cent, improving from a decline of -0.90 per cent in the first quarter of 2023. 

The industry sector experienced a growth of 2.19 per cent, up from 0.31 per cent in the same period last year. In terms of GDP share, the Services sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the corresponding quarter of 2023.

According to the report, the aggregate GDP for the quarter under review was N58,855,142.27 million in nominal terms.

This represents a higher performance compared to the first quarter of 2023, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N51,242,151.21 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 14.86 per cent. For better clarity, the Nigerian economy is broadly classified into the oil and non-oil sectors.

The real growth of the oil sector in Q1 2024 was 5.70 per cent  year-on-year, marking an increase of 9.91 percentage points compared to the -4.21 per cent recorded in the same quarter of 2023.

However, this growth decreased by 6.41 percentage points from Q4 2023, which was 12.11%. 

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the oil sector achieved a growth rate of 13.77 per cent in Q1 2024. The oil sector contributed 6.38 per cent to the total real GDP in Q1 2024, up from 6.21 per cent in the corresponding period of 2023 and 4.70 per cent in the preceding quarter. The non-oil sector experienced a growth of 2. per cent in real terms during Q1 2024. This growth rate was 0.02 percentage points higher than the same quarter in 2023, but 0.28 percentage points lower than Q4 2023. 

Key drivers in the first quarter of 2024 included Financial and Insurance (Financial Institutions), Information and Communication (Telecommunications), Agriculture (Crop Production), Trade, and Manufacturing (Food, Beverage, and Tobacco), all contributing to positive GDP growth.

In real terms, the non-oil sector contributed 93.6 per cent to the nation’s GDP in Q1 2024, which was slightly lower than the 93.79 per cent recorded in Q1 2023 and the 95.30 per cent recorded in Q4 2023.