Nigeria May Not Achieve Double Digit GDP Growth By 2024- Economist
Nigeria’s target for a sustainable and inclusive double digit economic growth by 2024 may not be feasible in the near future, a Partner and Chief Economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andrew Nevin has said.
Nevin said this in a Tweet on Tuesday.
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He made the statement in response to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s reassurance of achieving the target of a double digit economic growth.
The CBN Acting Director, Corporate Affairs Communications, Nwanisobi Osita, had in Lokoja insisted that the apex bank’s five year policy which covered 2019-2024 will grow the real economy for the country.
He said that the policy is centred on establishing a sustainable stable microeconomic environment which would reduce Nigeria’s surging inflation, stabilise the economy and solve the foreign exchange shortage.
The CBN governor had said that the pace of GDP growth remains fragile and is below annual population growth rate of 2.7 per cent.
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He said, “The recovery of our economy from the recession has not resulted in a significant reduction in our unemployment rate. We are yet to see a substantial increase in credit to the private sector by our financial institution.”
With the Nigerian economy largely affected by Covid- 19 pandemic, the Gross Domestic Product fell 6.10 per cent year on year in real terms.
The fall offsets the 1.87 per cent growth in real terms recorded in the first quarter of 2020.
The International Monetary Fund in its October economic outlook projects Africa’s largest economy will contract 4.3 per cent in 2020.
But the IMF believes by 2021, the country’s economy will experience 1.7 per cent weak recovery, a growth not healthy for the apex bank’s double digit growth target.
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A Financial Analyst, Kalu Aja, told THE WHISTLER that based on current economic realities, “no one can project into 2024,whether the apex bank will meet the double digit GDP target.”
