The Nigerian economy expanded by 2.98% y/y in real terms in the first quarter of this. According to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the growth trailed behind fourth quarter growth of 3.54%.
The quarter one growth performance was supported in part by the sustained recovery in the oil economy which grew 5.7% as against 4.2% contraction in the corresponding period of 2023, reflecting the modest improvement in average crude oil production to 1.57mbpd as against 1.51mbpd in the corresponding period of 2023. On the other hand, non-oil sector grew by 2.80% compared to 2.77% in the corresponding period of 2023, but underperformed fourth quarter 2023 growth of 3.07%. In all, the share of the oil sector rose to 6.38% from 6.21% in the first quarter of 2023, while the share of the non-oil sector compressed slightly by 16bps y/y to 93.62%.
The NBS figures further show that Services sector was dominant (up 4.3% y/y), while Agriculture (up 0.2% y/y) and Industries (up 2.2% y/y) sectors offering support to the overall growth print. Specifically, the growth in the Services sector was buoyed by expansion in Finance & Insurance sector (up 31.2% y/y), reflecting the impressive Q1 outing of publicly-held financial institutions. Meanwhile, the Information and Communications sector (17.5% of GDP) rose 5.4% y/y in real terms, although on a quarterly basis, growth declined by 9.9% as telcos implement the mandatory NIN-SIM linkage which led to a contraction in subscriber base (down 2.3% to 219.2m in Q1:2024). Meanwhile, Trade expanded slightly by 1.2% in the first quarter of this year, though it fell 8bps y/y as businesses and households continue to deal with the impact of inflationary pressure (April’ 2024: 33.69%) and a volatile FX market (NGN down about 32.5% in the first quarter of this year) despite CBN interventions.
Mining and Quarrying (6.5% share of GDP) grew by 6.3% y/y due to improvement in crude oil production (98.5% share of the sub-sector). Also, Transportation and Storage comprising Road (+5.6%), Rail & Pipelines (+66.6%), Water (+4.3%), Air (-9.5%), Transport Services (+5.9%), and Post and Courier Services (+2.4%) advanced 3.3% (FY’23, -30.2%). The Manufacturing sector (10.0% share of GDP) rose 1.5% y/y while the Construction sector (4.0% share of GDP) declined 2.1% y/y largely due to weak investment spending as exemplified by FG’s repeated underfunding of capital budget.