Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed
The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that the country's economy would soon be out of the current recession by end of this year or first quarter of the coming 2021fiscal year.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed gave the assurance on Monday at the 26th Nigerian Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.
Ahmed said, “While the economy has entered into recession in the third quarter, the trend of the growth suggests that this will be a short-lived recession, and indeed by the fourth or, at worst, the first quarter of 2021, the country will exit recession.
She stated further that “Our expectation of a quick exit, which will be historically fast, is anchored on the several complementary fiscal, real sector and monetary interventions that have been proactively introduced by government to forestall a far worse decline of the economy and alleviate the negative consequences of the pandemic.”
Edubiznews recalled that Nigeria, which is rated as Africa’s biggest economy, entered its second recession in five years in the third quarter of this year as the Gross Domestic Product fell for the second consecutive quarter.
Also the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)dropped by 3.62 per cent in Q3 and 6.10 per cent in Q2.
The finance minister blamed the situation on the COVID-19 pandemic which is also affecting other countries in the world, experiencing similar recession
She recalled that the country was experiencing sustained growth until the second quarter when the pandemic destrupted the growth.
“Let me remind us that before the impact of COVID-19, the Nigerian economy was experiencing sustained growth, which had been improving quarter by quarter until the second quarter of 2020, when the impact of the COVID-19 was felt,” the minister stated.
Ahmed noted that the country is better than other countries in recession, including the United Kingdom and the United States which recorded much deeper contraction than that of Nigeria.
“Nigeria is not alone in this, but I will say that Nigeria has outperformed all of these economies in terms of the record of a negative growth.”,she said.
According to her, South Africa, which recorded a decline of -50 per cent compared to Nigeria’s -6.1 per cent in Q2, will also record a deeper negative growth in Q3.
No comments:
Post a Comment