Finance minister predicts Nigeria will exit recession soon

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said that the current recession, which the Nigerian economy recently slid into, will be short-lived.

Ahmed made this assertion at the just concluded 26th Nigerian Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.

She said the country would emerge from the recession in the fourth quarter of this year or by the first quarter of 2021.

Recalled, Nigeria entered its second recession in five years in the third quarter of this year as the Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) fell for the second consecutive quarter.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, (NBS), the GDP dropped by 3.62 per cent in Q3 and 6.10 per cent in Q2.

She stressed that the COVID-19-induced recession followed the pattern globally where many countries had entered an economic recession.

“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 finance minister said.

Ahmed cited countries also in recession to include the United Kingdom and the United States, adding that they recorded much deeper contraction than that of Nigeria.

She added “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.”

South Africa, she said 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.

“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.

“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,” Ahmed pointed out.