Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth declined to 2.98%, lower than the rate recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023 which was 3.46%, according to the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday.
However, the GDP growth rate in the quarter is higher than the figure recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2023 which was 2.31%.
The performance of GDP in the first quarter of 2024 was primarily driven by the services sector, which grew by 4.32% and contributed 58.04% to the overall GDP. The agriculture sector saw a modest growth of 0.18%, improving from a decline of -0.90% in the first quarter of 2023.
The industry sector experienced a growth of 2.19%, up from 0.31% in the same period last year. In terms of GDP share, the Services sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the corresponding quarter of 2023.
According to the report, the aggregate GDP for the quarter under review was N58,855,142.27 million in nominal terms.
This represents a higher performance compared to the first quarter of 2023, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N51,242,151.21 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 14.86%. For better clarity, the Nigerian economy is broadly classified into the oil and non-oil sectors.
GDP growth in the oil sector
The real growth of the oil sector in Q1 2024 was 5.70% year-on-year, marking an increase of 9.91 percentage points compared to the -4.21% recorded in the same quarter of 2023.
However, this growth decreased by 6.41 percentage points from Q4 2023, which was 12.11%.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the oil sector achieved a growth rate of 13.77% in Q1 2024. The oil sector contributed 6.38% to the total real GDP in Q1 2024, up from 6.21% in the corresponding period of 2023 and 4.70% in the preceding quarter.
Non-oil sector GDP growth
The non-oil sector experienced a growth of 2.80% in real terms during Q1 2024. This growth rate was 0.02 percentage points higher than the same quarter in 2023, but 0.28 percentage points lower than Q4 2023.
Key drivers in the first quarter of 2024 included Financial and Insurance (Financial Institutions), Information and Communication (Telecommunications), Agriculture (Crop Production), Trade, and Manufacturing (Food, Beverage, and Tobacco), all contributing to positive GDP growth.
In real terms, the non-oil sector contributed 93.62% to the nation’s GDP in Q1 2024, which was slightly lower than the 93.79% recorded in Q1 2023 and the 95.30% recorded in Q4 2023.