Following the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday, Nigeria’s Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, has expressed regret at the slight drop in real GDP growth rate for Q2 2018.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Udoma said the slight drop in real GDP growth rate for Q2 was due to the contraction in the oil and gas sector, which he attributed to some production issues that are being addressed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Minister said once the issues are addressed, there should be able positive growth in the oil and gas sector.
Another area of concern for government was the slightly weaker growth in the agriculture sector which slowed to 1.19% in the second quarter in 2018 compared to 3.0% in the first quarter of 2018.
Udoma partly attributed this to the security challenges mainly in the North-east and North-central regions of the country.
“These security challenge affected activities of farmers with impact on commodity output,” he said.
He, however, noted that the various measures being taken by government to tackle the situation is already reducing incidents of violent conflicts and other disruptions to farming activity in the regions.
Meanwhile, the Minster said the FG is encouraged by the continuing growth recorded in the non-oil sector, which grew by 2.05% in Q2 2018.
This he noted was evidence that the implementation of the targeted policies and programs of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) is yielding positive results.
Udoma emphasized that the focus of the ERGP is on diversifying the economy away from dependence on the oil and gas sector and was encouraged that efforts are yielding fruits by the continuing growth in the non-oil sector.
He noted that the 2.05% growth in the non-oil sector represents the strongest growth in the non-oil GDP since the fourth quarter of 2015.