LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced a revision of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecast for 2024 from 2.9% to 3.3%.
This adjustment was attributed to improved recovery in the nation’s oil sector, better security conditions, and advancements in agriculture.
The announcement was made during a press conference on the global economic outlook, led by the Economic Counselor and Director of the Research Department at the IMF, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas along with Deputy Director of the Research Department, Petya Koeva-Brooks, and the Division Chief of the Research Department Daniel Leigh. The conference took place during the ongoing spring meetings in Washington D.C.
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The IMF projected that Nigeria’s inflation would decrease to 23 percent next year and further to 18 percent by 2026, indicating a positive trajectory for economic growth. In response to a question from BusinessDay about the factors driving this growth projection
Leigh said, “Growth on Nigeria is steady but actually rising this year from 2.9 percent last year to 3.3 percent this year. We have seen an expansion from the recovering oil sector with a better security situation and also improved agriculture benefiting from the better weather conditions and the introduction of dry season farming.
“So there is a broad-based increase also in the financial sector and the IT sector. Inflation has increased, part of this reflects the reforms, the exchange rate and it has passed from imports to other goods. This explains also why we revised our inflation projection for this year to 26 per cent.
“But with the tight monetary policies and the interest rate policy increase and significant interest rate in February and March, we see inflation declining to 23 per cent next year and then 18 per cent in 2026. So, it is in the right direction,” he said.