Nigeria’s GDP decreases by 6.1%

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter decreased by six per cent, a new report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed on Monday.

Announcing the release of the report, the Statistician-General of Nigeria, Dr Yemi Kale, said, “Industry real GDP contracted by -12.05% compared to 2.26% in Q1 2020 & 2.10% in Q2 2019.”

According to the report, the decline was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activity during the quarter, which resulted from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report read in part, “When compared with Q2 2019, which recorded a growth of 2.12%, the Q2 2020 growth rate indicates a drop of –8.22% points, and a fall of –7.97% points when compared to the first quarter of 2020 (1.87%).

Consequently, for the first half of 2020, real GDP declined by –2.18% year on year, compared with 2.11% recorded in the first half of 2019.Quarter on quarter, real GDP decreased by–5.04%.

Furthermore, only 13 activities recorded positive real growth compared to 30 in the preceding quarter.”