MON OCT 14 2024-theGBJournal| The World Bank said on Monday Economic growth in Nigeria is projected at 3.3 percent in 2024 and 3.6 percent in 2025–26 as macroeconomic and fiscal reforms gradually start yielding results.
The forecast is slightly lower than its April forecast of 3.4%.
The international lender, in its October Africa’s Pulse report, noted that inflation peaked in June 2024 (at 34.2 percent year-on-year) and decelerated to 33.4 percent in July and further to 32.2 percent in August.
While the inflationary effects of a weakened naira in the first months of this year and the removal of the gasoline subsidy in the second half of 2023 appeared to be
gradually subsiding, a further increase in gasoline prices by 40-45 percent in September may reverse the disinflationary trend.
”The consolidation of macroeconomic reforms should support higher growth in the country in 2025,” then World Bank said.
Meanwhile, the bank cut sub-Sharan African Economic Activity to 3% in 2024 from 3.4%, downgraded by 0.4 percentage point compared to the forecast in the April 2024 volume of Africa’s Pulse.
”The downgrade is partly explained by the collapse of economic activity in Sudan caused by the armed conflict, which has destroyed physical and human capital as well as state capacity, with adverse impacts on food security and greater forced
displacement,” the World Bank said.
However, growth for the region is expected to remain well above the 2.4% in 2023 growth.
Excluding Sudan, the region is expected to grow at 3.5 percent in 2024.
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