The World Bank has said improvement on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product and other statistics is an ongoing process.
It also said it supported the country’s overhaul of its GDP that propelled the economy ahead of South Africa’s as the biggest on the continent.
The Washington-based lender, along with the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank, cooperated with the National Bureau of Statistics in rebasing the GDP data, the World Bank said in an e-mailed response to questions by Bloomberg.
The accuracy of the data could be improved further, it said.
The NBS had on April 6 revised its estimate of economic output in the country, increasing it by more than three-quarters to N80tn ($497bn) for 2013. That compares with the World Bank’s 2012 GDP estimates of $263bn for Nigeria and $384bn for South Africa.
“We believe that the GDP rebasing is an important step forward in improving our understanding of the size and structure of the Nigerian economy,” the World Bank said, adding, “This understanding is important for informing policies and the design of World Bank assistance to the country.”
Of the world’s 1.2 billion poor people, seven per cent live in Nigeria, the World Bank said on its website. Only two countries, India and China, were home to a greater share of poor people, it said.
The World Bank said it would continue to support the improvement in the nation’s economic data.
“We see the improvement of GDP and other statistics in Nigeria as still an on-going process,” it said. “We hope to continue to provide support to this process, and believe that the accuracy of GDP figures can be increased further following the completion of key new surveys for agriculture, industry, and households.”
Economic and financial analysts have continued to express divergent views about the nation’s rebased GDP figure.
Some said that although the GDP of $510bn had made Nigeria the 26th biggest economy in the world and the largest in Africa, most people in the country were still living below the poverty line.
Others said it the development put the economy in a better stead as it would attract more foreign direct investment among other numerous benefits.
But the Chief Executive Officer, Eczellon Capital, a Nigeria-based investment bank, Mr. Diekola Onaolapo, said for Nigeria to solidify its position as the real economic giant of Africa, it needed to continue reforms that would facilitate real development.
Analysts said unless something was done to lift the impoverished masses, the risk of social unrest, already being reaped in a bloody insurgency in the destitute northeast and oil theft in the south, would continue to grow, according to a Reuters report.
The Chief Africa Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, Razia Khan, however, said Nigeria’s growing inequalities added to “political risks, as a result of perceived marginalisation.”
She said, “The pressure on the authorities to create some sort of social safety net in response will be significant.
