Federal government of Nigeria has said the country’s recent exit from recession was a direct result of its fiscal policies.
Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who briefed State House correspondents, along side Ministers of Information and Culture, Lai Mohamed, and FCT, Mohammed Bello, at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, presided over by President Buhari, said the quick exit showed that government’s economic diversification efforts were yielding positive outcomes.
She said: “At he Federal Executive Council, we had the opportunity to brief Council on the National Bureau of Statistics recently published fourth quarter GDP report estimates, which measure the economic growth of our country.
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“Nigeria’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2020 grew by 0.11 per cent and in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2020. This follows, if you recall, two consecutive negative growth in the third quarter and the second quarter of 2020, which saw us as a country going into recession. As a result of this fourth quarter positive growth, the total growth for the year 2020 is -1.92 per cent.
“It would be recalled that we had ourselves reported, that we will be going into a negative growth at the end of 2020 at -4 per cent and some of the international development institutions reported much higher negative growth for Nigeria. So at -1.92 per cent, it is a very good performance. But also, the good story for us is that with this positive growth in the fourth quarter, it means Nigeria has exited recession. This is one of the shortest recessions we have witnessed in the country, despite the impact of the COVID-19.
‘’But I must say that the result of this exit is a function of the fiscal policies, the monetary policies and the Economic Sustainability Plan that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been implementing.
“So, of the 46 sectors of the economy, 17 recorded positive growth and this is higher than the number of sectors that had recorded positive growth in the third quarter. In real terms, the growth between the third quarter and the fourth quarter is a positive growth of 3.73 per cent, a movement within one quarter we have never witnessed in this country, so we’re growing from one quarter to another by 3.73 per cent.
