World Bank: Nigeria’s Economic Recession To End in 2017

A new World Bank report predicts that Nigeria’s current economic recession will end in 2017. A statement released by the bank on Wednesday in its January 2017 Global Economic Prospects report said Nigeria can expect to eventually claw its way out of its worst recession in decades by gaining a modest 1 percent growth in GDP. The report also forecasts economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa to witness a 2.9 percent growth as the region adjusts to lower commodity prices on the international market.

“Growth in South Africa is expected to edge up to a 1.1 percent pace this year. Nigeria is forecast to rebound from the recession and grow at a 1 percent pace. Angola is projected to expand at a 1.2 percent pace.” the report reads.

“Sub-Saharan African growth is expected to pick up modestly to 2.9 percent in 2017 as the region continues to adjust to lower commodity prices.

Growth in South Africa and oil exporters is expected to be weaker, while growth in economies that are not natural-resource intensive should remain robust.”

Last August, Nigeria announced that it was in a recession after suffering a successive quarter of negative growth.

Figures from the country’s Bureau of Statistics show that the Nigerian economy contracted by 2.06 percent in the second quarter of 2016, sliding further from a negative growth of 0.36 percent experienced in the first quarter of the year, resulting in two successive quarters of negative economic growth

The World Bank report also says commodity exporters and developing economies will expand by 2.3 percent in 2017, powered by the recovery of emerging economies like Brazil and Russia after 2016’s abysmal growth of 0.3 percent.

The bank predicts that growth in emerging markets and developing economies as a whole should rise to 4.2 percent this year from 3.4 percent in the year just ended, amid modestly rising commodity prices.

Nigeria is one of several petroleum producing countries around the world that has seen its economies suffer from the slump in crude oil prices. The export of Petroleum products accounts for about 90 percent of Nigeria’s total export revenue. Crude oil prices have crashed from its 2014 peak of about $122 per barrel and now hover at less than $50 per barrel.