Experts Revise Nigeria’s 2015 GDP Growth Lower than Rate of Population Expansion

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product growth projection for 2015 has been revised downwards to 2.8 per cent.

The new growth estimates 2 basis points are lower than the estimated population growth rate of 3 percent in 2015,

Investment Bank Renaissance Capital responsible for the revision said: “We revise down our 2015 growth forecast to 2.8% for two reasons: 1) 1 H15 growth of 3.1% year on year (YoY) came in below our 2015 forecast of 3.4%; and 2) we expect supply constraints, related to FX restrictions and the de facto import ban, to undermine growth in 2H15.

“As population growth is c. 3% pa, this implies negative per-capita income growth, which acts as a drag on the consumer sector.”

The manufacturing sector, which accounts for 10 percent of GDP, contracted for a second consecutive quarter, by 3.8 percent YoY in 2Q15, compared to growth of 14.0 per cent YoY a year earlier.

This comes after double-digit growth in 2011-2014, and the decline is largely attributable to the largest manufacturing sub-sector, food, beverages and tobacco, which contracted by 5.9 percent YoY in 2Q15, compared to growth of 5.2 percent YoY in 2Q14.

The textiles sub-sector has also seen two successive quarters of negative growth.