The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised Nigeria’s growth projection for 2021 higher from the 2.5 percent growth in its July projection.
The IMF in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released on Tuesday forecasted that Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow at 2.6 percent by the end of the year and by 2.7
In 2022, the Fund estimated that the economy will grow by 2.7 percent as against 2.3 percent projected in April this year.
The report also projected that Nigeria’s consumer prices will rise to 16.9 percent from its earlier prediction of 14.5 percent in 2021 and will moderate to 13.3 percent by the end of 2022.
It added that the current account balances for the country will rise to -3.2 percent from -4.0 percent recorded in 2020.
The international organisation however put global economic growth at 5.9 percent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022, indicating a downward review of 0.1 percentage point than its July update.
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The IMF said persistent output losses are expected for the emerging market and developing economy group due to slower vaccine rollouts and generally less policy support compared to advanced economies.
“The downward revision for 2021 reflects a downgrade for advanced economies—in part due to supply disruptions—and for low-income developing countries, largely due to worsening pandemic dynamics,” the IMF said.
It added, “This is partially offset by stronger near-term prospects among some commodity-exporting emerging market and developing economies.
“Employment is generally expected to continue lagging the recovery in output.
“Inflation risks are skewed to the upside and could materialize if pandemic-induced supply-demand
mismatches continue longer than expected (including if the damage to supply potential turns out worse than
anticipated), leading to more sustained price pressures and rising inflation expectations that prompt a faster than-anticipated monetary normalization in advanced economies,” it added.
The IMF noted that multilateral efforts to speed up global vaccine access, provide liquidity and debt relief to constrained economies, and mitigate and adapt to climate change remain essential are urgently needed.
The report said, “Speeding up the vaccination of the world population remains the top policy priority, while continuing the push for widespread testing and investing in therapeutics.
“This would save millions of lives, help prevent the emergence of new variants, and hasten the global economic recovery.”
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