Nigeria’s Economic Growth Still Fragile, Despite 4.03% GDP – CBN

A member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Adamu Lametek, has said the Federal Government should continue to focus on the country economic growth as it remains fragile.

Lametek, who is also a CBN deputy governor, disclosed this in his personal statement at the last MPC meeting, pointing out that the various sectors of the economy were still struggling despite the positive growth in Gross Domestic Product in the third quarter of 2021.

The National Bureau of Statistics had in October 2021 disclosed that the country’s GDP grew by 4.03 per cent in Q3, 2021.

Lametek also said the economy needed to expand at a higher rate than the growth recorded in the Q3 2021, to generate more jobs for economic expansion.

On inflation, he said despite the consecutive decline over seven months, it had to yet to attain the pre-pandemic level.

He said, “Even at the 4.03 per cent overall real growth rate in Q3, some sectors (activities) were still struggling.

“Among those, oil and gas, fishing and oil refining stood out. These activities and some others that barely crossed the line would continue to require policy support in the short- to medium-term.

“The need to sustain liquidity support to key economic activities is buttressed by the vulnerabilities in the horizon, including new variants of the coronavirus driving infection resurgence.

“For Nigeria, I do not think the time is rife to look away from economic growth for at least two reasons. Though impressive, growth is still fragile and should benefit from a slightly much longer policy support.

“The second consideration is that the current pressures on domestic prices appear to be largely supply related, in which case, increasing domestic output of goods and services and easing distribution bottlenecks should go a long way in alleviating the pressure.

He advocated for extra fiscal support to enable those struggling sectors to recover.