Nigeria Will Soon Exit Recession Caused By COVID-19 Outbreak – Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said that Nigeria will soon exit its current recession which was caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

KanyiDaily recalls that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had on Saturday announced that Nigeria has officially slid into its worst economic recession in over three decades.

According to gross domestic product numbers released by the NBS, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020.

Speaking at the 26th Nigerian Economic Summit on Monday, Mrs Ahmed said the country would emerge from the recession in the fourth quarter of this year or by the first quarter of 2021.

The finance minister said the COVID-19-induced recession followed the pattern across the world where many countries had entered an economic recession.

“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,” she said.

Ahmed said other countries also in recession, including the United Kingdom and the United States, recorded much deeper contraction than that of Nigeria.

“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.”

According to her, South Africa, which recorded a decline of -50 per cent compared to Nigeria’s -6.1 per cent in Q2, will also record a deeper negative growth in Q3.

“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,” she said.

Meanwhile, a former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi has called on Nigerian politicians to put aside their 2023 political aspirations and focus on how to rescue the country from the current economic crisis.