Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 2.31 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, occasioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign policy, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.
The NBS revealed this in its ‘Nigerian Gross Domestic Product Report Q1 2023’ it released on Wednesday, May 24.
The policy brought untold hardship to households, organisations, and even the government as it created cash scarcity, and crippled many businesses.
In its reports, the NBS stated that the GDP rate in the first quarter (Q1) fell, relative to 3.11 per cent recorded in Q1 2022 and 3.52 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) 2022.
“The reduction in growth is attributed to the adverse effects of the cash crunch experienced during the quarter,” the NBS said.
According to the statistics office, the performance of the GDP in Q1 2023 was driven mainly by the services sector, which recorded a growth of 4.35 per cent and contributed 57.29 per cent to the aggregate GDP rate.
The agriculture sector declined to negative territory by -0.90 per cent, lower than the growth of 3.16 per cent recorded in Q1 2022, while the industry sector improved to 0.31 per cent from a hostile zone of -6.81 per cent recorded in Q1 2022.
The agriculture and the industry sectors contributed less to the aggregate GDP in the quarter under review than in the first quarter of 2022.
Aggregate GDP stood at N51.24 million in nominal terms in the quarter under review, higher than N45.32 million recorded in Q1 2022, which implied that nominal grew by 13.07 per cent in one year.
Nigeria recorded an average daily oil production of 1.51 million barrels per day (mbd) in Q1, higher than the average daily production of 1.49 mbpd in the same quarter of 2022 and 1.34 mbpd in Q4 2022.
The natural growth of the oil sector was negative at –4.21 per cent in Q1 2023, an increase of 21.83 per cent points relative to -26.04 per cent recorded in Q1 2022.
The oil sector contributed 6.21 per cent to the total real GDP in Q1 2023, down from 6.63 per cent recorded in Q1 2022 but up from 4.34 per cent reported in Q4 2022.
The non-oil sector fell to 2.77 per cent, lower than 3.30 per cent in Q1 2022 and higher than 1.67 per cent in Q4 2022.
According to the NBS, the non-oil sector was driven mainly by information and communication, financial and insurance, trade, manufacturing, construction, and transportation, which accounted for positive growth.
