The International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Tuesday, downgraded its forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth in 2024 to 3.1 percent. The Fund cited weaker growth recorded in the first quarter of the year, Q1’24. The new forecast was contained in the July 2024 World Economic Outlook of the IMF released on Tuesday.
The downgrade represents 0.2 percentage points below the earlier forecast of 3.3 percent.
Also, it followed weaker-than-expected Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth recorded by the country in Q1’23.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), showed that Nigeria’s GDP growth dropped quarter-on-quarter, QoQ to 2.98 percent in the Q1’24 from 3.46 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, Q3’23,
The IMF, however, retained its 3.0 percent 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 percent from the April WEO forecast of 3.8 percent.
However, it raised the economic growth forecast for the region in 2025 to 4.1 percent from 4.0.
“The forecast for growth in sub-Saharan Africa is revised downward, mainly as a result of a 0.2 percentage point downward revision to the growth outlook in Nigeria amid weaker than expected activity in the first quarter of this year,” the IMF said.
