•Country’s real GDP put at $407bn
•Still 26th largest economy in the world


By James Emejo 

Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate has been revised downwards to 5.49 per cent in 2013 from the projected 7.41 per cent earlier announced in the April rebasing exercise undertaken by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In its revised and final GDP rebasing results by output released yesterday, the NBS also showed that the Nigeria’s real GDP output at constant price in 2013 stood at $407.85 billion (N63.218 trillion).

When the NBS released its rebased figures last April, the country’s nominal GDP output in 2013 was put at $510 billion (N79.050 trillion).
Real GDP, often referred to as “constant price”, is an inflation-adjusted value that reflects the value of all goods and services produced in a given year, expressed in base-year prices, and is always lower than the nominal GDP that has not been adjusted for inflation.

With the revision, Nigeria still retains its position as the 26th largest economy in the world as well as Africa’s largest economy.

South Africa, the continent’s second largest economy, had a nominal GDP on 350.7 billion in 2013, according to the World Bank.

But despite the size of the Nigerian economy, it is still classified as a lower medium income economy due to its low per capita income of $2,760, relative to South Africa’s GDP per capita of $6,800, which makes it an upper middle income economy.

The real GDP growth rate following the rebasing exercise by the NBS was estimated at 5.09 per cent in 2011; 6.66 per cent in 2012 and a projected 7.41 per cent in 2013.
However, according to the revised and final GDP rebasing results by output approach, which was released yesterday by the NBS, it stated that GDP growth for 2011 had also been reviewed upwards to 5.31 per cent, while in 2012 it was revised downwards to 4.21 per cent.

Commenting on the revision, the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company, Mr. Bismark Rewane, said it is not unusual for countries to revise their GDP figures to reflect the true growth rate and GDP output.

He informed THISDAY that he had expressed concern when the NBS, last April, had projected a growth rate of 7.41 per cent as the country’s GDP growth rate for 2013, stating that it was not possible for the GDP growth rate to grow in tandem with an economy that is expanding in output.

“The larger the economy, the lower the rate of growth is what obtains worldwide. Even see what happened with the Chinese economy in the 1990s, it grew at 15 per cent, but has slowed down to 7 per cent as output grew,” he said.

“We expected that there will be a corresponding reduction in (Nigerian) growth ... It’s much easier to grow when you are small than when you are big,” he was quoted by Reuters as stating also.

But Rewane added that the economy was still too heavily dependent on oil and vulnerable to price shocks.

“The Nigerian economy is narrower with oil as the dominant revenue earner. South Africa has a more balanced economy. The stage of development in Nigeria is still primordial, which makes our growth vulnerable,” he said.
There was no immediate reaction to the data in the equity or currency markets.
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