NBS to Launch Rebased GDP Data End of January
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that the details of the newly rebased Gross Domestic Product will be launched at the end of the month.
This was disclosed on Thursday at the sensitisation workshop on GDP and CPI rebasing organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the NBS in Lagos.
In October, the NBS announced plans to rebase the GDP and CPI to reflect current realities and account for structural changes in the economy.
It was also revealed that 2019 has been picked as the rebase year.
During his presentation, the technical assistant to the Statistician General, Moses Waniko, revealed that the gathered data would be validated and then launched at the end of the month.
He said, “We’re currently concluding the rebasing. We need to validate the results, and then we have to do a launch; we are looking at the end of January to do that launch, to disseminate the numbers, and then, usually, there are post-rebasing activities that will happen.”
Waniko added that the rebasing would have implications for the economy.
He stated, “It is good to look at the rebasing from different angles, not just the aggregate numbers, but to look at what those numbers are supposed to tell us, in terms of the distribution, the aggregate numbers, in terms of their weights, contributions and the rest.
“Beyond that, there are other implications for the national economy, which we have tried to put in this slide. The first is rebasing will provide or allow for an Economic and Development Plan.
“The second is that the rebasing will really help to provide a good trajectory for the economy. So beyond this, it’s important to also state that after the rebasing, there are certain things that we expect that might change, such as changes in the size of the structure of the economy.
“We expect that the size of the economy will be bigger.
“The tax-to-GDP ratio is something that people may want to see what the numbers would look like. Debt to GDP ratio of 18.5 per cent as of September 2019 could also reduce with the bigger size of the GDP, and then per-capita income will increase after the rebasing.”
