Nigeria’s GDP grows by 2.28% in third quarter of 2019

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has experienced its second highest quarterly growth in four years having nudged up by 2.28 per cent in the third quarter of 2019, data by Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.

According to the NBS, the growth rate in third quarter (Q3) of 2019 represents the second-highest quarterly rate growth recorded since 2016.

The data released shows that the 2.28 per cent gross domestic product growth is 0.17 percentage points higher than the 2.12 per cent revised GDP growth recorded in the second quarter of the same year.

The GDP report, which was released on Friday, indicates that the average daily oil production in the quarter was 2.04 million barrels per day.

The report disclosed that the non-oil sector grew by 1.85 per cent during the third quarter.

Driven mainly by the information and communication sector, other drivers of the non-oil sector were agriculture, mining and quarrying, transportation and storage, and manufacturing.

In real terms, the non-oil sector contributed 90.23 per cent to the nation’s GDP.

The mining and quarrying sector grew by 5.98 per cent in Q3 2019.

Quarrying and other minerals exhibited the highest growth rate of all the sub-activities at 58.03 per cent , followed by coal at 43.68 per cent.

Agricultural sector grew by 14.88 per cent in Q3 2019, showing a decline of –3.44 per cent points from the same quarter of 2018.