Manufacturing Grows by 1.28% – NBS
The manufacturing sector grew by 1.28 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of the year, according to the Gross Domestic Product report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Monday.
The sector grew at a slower pace by 0.92 per cent when compared with the same quarter of 2023 and by 0.22 per cent against the Q1 2024 figure.
Slow growth in the manufacturing sector reflects the dwindling of industrial clusters, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.
Data from the NBS, which considered 13 categories in the manufacturing sector, showed that on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the sector contracted by -15.16 per cent.
Manufacturing growth as calculated by the NBS looked at the contributions of sectors, including oil refining, cement, food, beverages and tobacco, textile, apparel, and footwear, wood and wood products, pulp paper and paper products and chemical and pharmaceutical products, among others.
The manufacturing’s real contribution to GDP during the period under review was 8.46 per cent, compared to the 8.62 per cent contribution it recorded in Q2 2023 and lower than the 9.98 per cent recorded in Q1 2024.
The President of MAN, Francis Meshioye, said Nigerian industrial cluster was dwindling and being overtaken by other businesses.
Meshioye said, “Our industrial clusters are being overtaken by other businesses. Businesses in the industrial clusters have dwindled, particularly in Lagos.
In the Q2 2024 report of the MAN CEO’s Confidence Index, five industrial zones said that in the quarter under review they had low confidence in the Nigerian economy, including Kano (40), Rivers/ Bayelsa (44.7), Bauchi/ Benue/ Plateau (45), Anambra/ Enugu (48.1) Oyo/ Ondo/ Ekiti/ Osun (48.8) with indices less than 50 points.
Meshioye disclosed that more than 700 businesses had closed in the past years and that the number was counting on as the economic environment became unsuitable.
While he referenced big manufacturers that had left Nigeria or downsized, such as Procter and Gamble and Unilever Nigeria, Meshioye said smaller businesses were going under.
The MAN president highlighted the impact of the Monetary Policy Rate on manufacturing businesses, calling called on the Monetary Policy Committee to refrain from increasing interest rates further in its next meeting.
He said, “I believe that the committee is ever-conscious of the prevailing economic environment and ever-conscious of what we are going through at the individual level and the business level and I am sure that all this will impact their thought processes to design what should be the MPR at the next meeting.”
The NBS reported that the growth of the industry sector was 3.53 per cent, an improvement from 1.94 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2023.
According to the statistics agency, the non-oil sector grew by 2.80 per cent in real terms in Q2 2024, which was lower by 0.78 per cent compared to the Q2 2023 growth performance of 3.58 per cent, due to financial and insurance, information and communication, agriculture, and trade and manufacturing sectors.
