By Deborah Hassan
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has urged Nigerians to look beyond the fact that the Nigerian economy is in a recession, adding that the economy is “still very well under the circumstances”.
Speaking on Wednesday when he appeared on NTA’s Good Morning Show, he noted that other countries including Finland, Hungary, Spain, Mexico, Russia, Romania, Belgium, Austria also have their economies in recession.
“It is true we are in a recession. Recession comes when a country records two consecutive quarters of negative growths. But we must go beyond that to understand that despite that, our economy is still very well in circumstances,” he stated.
Going further, the minister added, “The main reason why we have entered into this recession is the oil sector. The oil sector recorded -13.89% and that is the worst in 14 quarters. Of course, it is easy to understand why; with the pandemic, there is low demand for oil…but when you look at the non-oil sector which is about -2.51 % in Q3, it is far better than what it was in the Q2.
“Overall, yes, we are in a recession and it is inevitable but while our Q2 result was -6.1%, South Africa was -50% and as we speak today, Finland, Hungary, Spain, Mexico, Russia, Romania, Belgium, Austria have all fallen into recession.
“But we are very confident that with the intervention policies, with the fiscal and monetary interventions the government has put in place, the recession will be short-lived.”
He further explained that the recession was triggered by the global collapse in oil prices due the coronavirus pandemic.
The National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday said Nigeria has entered into another recession, the worse in 36 years.
Its report for third quarter of 2020 said the nation’s GDP dropped by 3.62 per cent.