INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday affirmed that Nigeria will this year recover from economic recession, projecting that the nation’s economy will grow by 0.8 percent in 2017.
Citing increased crude oil production due to security improvement, the IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) released, Monday, said that Nigeria Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow by 0.8 percent in 2017 and 2.3 percent in 2018.
These represent 0.2 percent and 0.7 percent improvement from what the IMF projected for Nigeria in its October 2016 World Economic outlook. The IMF also projected that Nigeria’s economy grew by 1.6 percent in 2016, notwithstanding the decline in economic growth recorded from January to September. “Nigeria’s forecasts were also revised up, primarily reflecting higher oil production due to security improvements”, the IMF said.
The forecast, though 0.2 percent lower, corroborates the 1.0 percent growth forecast for Nigeria’s economy in 2017 by the World Bank in its World Economic Report released last week. While the IMF retained its forecast of 3.2 per cent growth for the global economy in 2017, it, however, raised its forecast for advance countries to 1.9 percent from 1.8 percent. It downgraded its growth forecast for Emerging Market and Developing Economies (EMDEs) and sub-Saharan economies, respectively to 4.5 percent from 4.6 percent, and to 2.8 percent from 2.7 percent.
