Nigeria records economic growth, as GDP hits $247 billion
Wednesday, 28 September 2011 00:00 By Taiwo Hassan Business Services - Business News

MIDDLE class Nigerians have been responsible for the growing economic activities that have increased the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP), a recent report by Renaissance Capital has said.

The report, based on its recent survey of the country’s middle class, said the activities of the middle class Nigerians had helped in increasing the country’s GDP, from $46 billon in 2000 to $247 billion this year.

According to the report, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic would be equivalent to that of the Asian Tigers of Vietnam or Bangladesh, as the nation’s per capita GDP at market exchange rates  increased from $390 in 2001 to $1,541 this year.

The survey by Renaissance Capital, a leading emerging-markets investment bank, which was released yesterday, showed that the country’s economy was being turn around by the middle class, who accounted for 23 per cent of nation’s population.

The report showed that the investment opportunities presented by Nigeria’s rapidly growing middle class, against a highly favourable macro-economic backdrop, indicated that the nation’s GDP rose fivefold within the same years, even as the population increased by more than one-third over the same period, from 119 million to 160 million.

“The magnitude of the increase in Nigeria’s population between now and 2016 is the equivalent of adding another Romania (22 million people); while, based on cautious IMF forecasts, the increase in Nigeria’s GDP in five years will be equivalent to the addition of another Vietnam (90 milion)or Bangladesh (142 million).”

According to the report, “Nigeria’s per capita GDP at market exchange rates rose from $390 in 2001 to $1,541 in 2011, based on IMF figures, with prediction that it will hit $2,000 in 2016,” said the Renaissance’s economists.

The company’s survey was conducted with 1,004 middle-class Nigerians, residing in the cities of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, 70 per cent of whom were aged 40 or younger.

“The Nigerian middle class we surveyed has a monthly income of some $500-600 and nearly half will be buying fridges, freezers and other white goods, suggesting cosumer boom is underway.”

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