NIGERIA’S gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 3.46 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023 compared to 3.52 per cent recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2022, reported the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The statistics office revealed this in the ‘Nigeria Gross Domestic Product Q4 2023’ report released on Thursday, February 22.
According to the NBS, the services sector was the primary driver of the overall GDP growth, recording an increase to 3.98 per cent and contributing 56.55 per cent to the aggregate GDP.
The agriculture sector improved slightly to 2.10 per cent, from the growth of 2.05 per cent in Q4 2023, while the industry sector left the negative territory of -0.94 per cent recorded in Q4 2022 to 3.86 per cent in Q4 2023.
The NBS reported that in terms of share of the GDP, industry and the services sectors contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the review quarter relative to the corresponding quarter.
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Annually, GDP declined to 2.74 per cent in 2023 compared to 3.10 per cent reported in 2022.
On sectoral contribution to the GDP, the agriculture sector declined to 25.18 per cent in 2023 from 25.58 per cent in 2022, and the industrial sector declined from 19.02 per cent to 18.65 per cent.
On the contrary, the services sector’s contribution to the GDP grew to 56.18 per cent in 2023 from 55.40 per cent in 2022.
Also, while oil contribution declined to 5.40 per cent in 2023 from 5.67 per cent in 2022, the non-oil grew to 94.60 per cent from 94.33 per cent.
Quarter on quarter, GDP improved from 2.54 per cent in the third quarter of 2023 to 3.46 per cent in Q4 2023.
“In the quarter under review, aggregate GDP stood at N65,908,258.59 million in nominal terms. This performance is higher when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N56,757,889.95 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 16.12 per cent,” the NBS stated.
Experts had told The ICIR that President Bola Tinubu was unlikely to achieve his target of increasing the country’s GDP rate to six per cent annually.
The experts said that his government needed to implement specific reforms to improve some sectors of the economy before the goal could be feasible.
In a report, The ICIR showed how government policies impacted households and businesses in 2023.