The International Monetary Fund yesterday downgraded its forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth in 2024 to 3.1 percent, citing weaker growth recorded in the first quarter of the year, Q1’24.
The new forecast was contained in yesterday’s July 2024 World Economic Outlook of the IMF. The downgrade represents 0.2 percentage points below the earlier forecast of 3.3 per cent.
The downgrade followed weaker-than-expected Gross Domestic Product, GDP, and growth recorded by the country in Q1’23.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, showed that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth dropped, quarter-on-quarter, QoQ to 2.98 per cent in Q1’24 from 3.46 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, Q3’23, The IMF however retained its 3.0 per cent forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth in 2025.
As a result of the lower forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth, the IMF also downgraded its forecast for Sub-Saharan economic growth in 2024 to 3.7 per cent from the April WEO forecast of 3.8 per cent.
It, however, raised its economic growth forecast for the region in 2025 to 4.1 per cent from 4.0. For the global economy, the IMF retained its growth forecasts of 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 3.3 per cent in 2025.
