By Deborah Hassan
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has assured Nigerians that Nigeria would emerge from the recession in the fourth quarter of this year or by the first quarter of 2021.
Ahmed disclosed this on Monday while speaking at the ongoing 26th Nigerian Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning in Abuja.
Nigeria’s economy was declared in recession last week, the second in five years, as the Gross Domestic Product fell for the second consecutive quarter.
The National Bureau of Statistics disclosed that the GDP dropped by 3.62 per cent in Q3 and 6.10 per cent in Q2.
The Finance minister further said the COVID-19 pandemic induced the recession, adding that the country is suffering the same fate as many others across the world, including the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
“Let me remind us that before the impact of COVID-19, the Nigerian economy was experiencing sustained growth, which had been improving quarter by quarter until the second quarter of 2020, when the impact of the COVID-19 was felt.
“Nigeria is not alone in this, but I will say that Nigeria has outperformed all of these economies in terms of the record of a negative growth,” Ahmed stated.
She listed South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America as some countries which recorded a worse compared to Nigeria’s -6.1 per cent in Q2.
Ahmed said, “While the economy has entered into recession in the third quarter, the trend of the growth suggests that this will be a short-lived recession, and indeed by the fourth or, at worst, the first quarter of 2021, the country will exit recession.
“Our expectation of a quick exit, which will be historically fast, is anchored on the several complementary fiscal, real sector and monetary interventions that have been proactively introduced by government to forestall a far worse decline of the economy and alleviate the negative consequences of the pandemic.”