Nigeria’s Growth to Decline by 4.1 Percent in 2020 and Remains Subdue in 2021 at 0.3 Percent

The World Bank has lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s petrol subsidy removal despite the negative impacts of COVID-19.

In a report titled ‘Charting the Road to Recovery‘ released from the Office of the Chief Economist for the Africa Region, World Bank Group, the multilateral financial institution said Nigeria and other African nations are seizing the opportunity offered by COVID-19 disruption to reposition their economies for growth and attract investors.

It said “In Nigeria, the government has taken important steps to reform its subsidy regime. It has eliminated the gasoline subsidy and established a market-based pricing mechanism with no price ceilings.”

The bank also lauded the ongoing digital economy initiatives of President Muhammadu Buhari in improving economic productivities and deepen growth on a broader scale.

It reads “In several African countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, and Nigeria, digital technologies are helping to improve farmers’ access to upstream and downstream markets by facilitating price discovery, improving buyer-seller matches, and digitally enabling collective action to increase farmers’ inclusion and bargaining power in agri-food value chains.”

The bank predicted that growth would contract by 4.1 percent in Nigeria in 2020 and remained subdued at about 0.3 percent next year.

It said, “In Nigeria, after expanding 1.9 per cent year-on-year in 2020 Q1, real GDP contracted by 6.1 year-on-year in 2020 Q2, with growth in the oil and non-oil sectors falling.

“The near-term outlook is subject to considerable uncertainty as the economy continues to grapple with the effects of the pandemic.”

“Investment remains weak amid high uncertainty. Growth is projected to fall by 4.1 per cent in 2020 and remain subdued at 0.3 per cent in 2021,” it added.