BEVERLY HILLS, May 23, (THEWILL) – The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, on Tuesday released the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth rate report for the first quarter of 2017 with the economy contracting by 0.52 per cent within the period.
The negative growth rate of 0.52 per cent shows that the economy is still in recession and contrasts with a revised 1.7 per cent contraction in the final three months of 2016.
But the NBS stated that this particular contraction is the best performance in four quarters, compared to revised 1.73 per cent contraction in Q4 of 2016 and 0.67 per cent in Q1 2016.
This is the fifth consecutive contraction in GDP growth rate that the economy would be recording since the first quarter of 2016.
Part of the NBS report reads, “In the first quarter of 2017, the nation’s GDP contracted by -052 per cent (year on year) in real terms, representing the fifth consecutive quarter of contraction since Q1 2016.
“This is higher than the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2016 and higher by 1.21 percentage points from rate recorded in the preceding quarter.”
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, observed that many sectors of the economy turned positive but failed to get the country out of recession.
Still in negative territory, the oil sector saw a boost in its fortune as it contributes 8.9 per cent of the country’s GDP. The oil industry contracted 11.6 per cent from a year earlier, a sixth straight quarter of declines, while agriculture, which contributed 24 per cent of GDP, expanded 3.4 per cent, the slowest pace since the first three months of last year.
The non-oil GDP grew by 0.72 percent to record the best performance in four quarters, when compared to -0.33 per cent in Q4 2016 and -0.18 per cent in Q1 2016.
Despite this performance, the contribution of the non-oil sector to GDP declined by nearly two per cent from 93.25 per cent in Q4 2016 to 91.10 per cent.
Transport services GDP contracted by 4.01 per cent in Q1 2017 from -2.63 per cent in Q4 2016 and 2.23 per cent in Q1 2016.
