The International Monetary Fund on Monday said that Nigeria would recover from economic recession this year, projecting that the country’s economy would grow by 0.8 per cent.
In its latest World Economic Outlook released on Monday, the IMF said that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product would grow by 0.8 per cent this year and 2.3 per cent in 2018.
The Fund cited increased crude oil production due to security improvement as the reason for the forecast.
The projections for this year and the next represent 0.2 per cent and 0.7 per cent improvement from what the IMF had projected for Nigeria in its October 2016 World Economic Outlook.
“Nigeria’s forecasts were also revised up, primarily reflecting higher oil production due to security improvements,” it stated.
The forecast, though 0.2 per cent lower, corroborates the 1.0 per cent growth forecast for Nigeria’s economy in 2017 by the World Bank in its World Economic Report released last week.
While the IMF retained its forecast of 3.2 per cent growth for the global economy in 2017, it, however, raised its forecast for advance countries to 1.9 per cent from 1.8 per cent.
It downgraded its growth forecast for Emerging Market and Developing Economies and sub-Saharan economies, respectively to 4.5 per cent from 4.6 per cent, and 2.8 per cent from 2.7 per cent.
The IMF said, “Global growth for 2016 is now estimated at 3.1 per cent, in line with the October 2016 forecast.”
