Mixture of good and bad news: GDP rises; investments into Nigeria drops by 67%

It was an admixture of the good and the bad for the economy as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose to a three-year high, but investments into the country dropped by a staggering 67 % last year.
GDP grew by 2.55%(year-on-year) in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2019, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report said.
“Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 2.55%(year-on-year) in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2019. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2018 which recorded a growth rate of 2.38%, this represents an increase of 0.17% points and an increase of 0.27% points when compared with the third quarter of 2019.”
“In Q4 2019, aggregate GDP stood at N39,577,340.04 million in nominal terms. This was higher than the fourth quarter of 2018 which recorded an aggregate of N35,230,607.63 million, representing year on year nominal growth rate of 12.34%.”
“During the fourth quarter of 2019, average daily oil production of 2.00 million barrels per day (mbpd) was recorded, indicating a rise of 0.09mbpd over the daily average production of 1.91 mbpd recorded in the same quarter of 2018.
“However, it was –0.04mbpd lower than the production volume of 2.04mbpd recorded in the third quarter of 2019. Nevertheless, it is notable that oil production remained consistently at or above 2.0mbpd all through 2019
“Real growth of the oil sector was 6.36% (year-on-year) in Q4 2019 indicating an increase of 7.98% points relative to the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2018.”
“The non-oil sector grew by 2.26% in real terms during the reference quarter (Q4 2019). This was lower by –0.44% points compared to the rate recorded in the same quarter of 2018 but 0.42% point higher than the third quarter of 2019. This sector was driven, during the fourth quarter of 2019, mainly by Information and Communication
(Telecommunications), Agriculture (Crop Production), Financial and Insurance Services (Financial Institutions), and Manufacturing. In real terms, the Non-Oil sector contributed 92.68% to the nation’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2019, lower from shares recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018 (92.94%) but higher than the third quarter of 2019 (90.23%). The annual contribution of the non-Oil sector stood at 91.22% in 2019.”
Meanwhile, according to a report by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) investments into Nigeria dropped by 67 percent to $29 billion in 2019, against $90 billion that was recorded in 2018.
It explained 2019, because it wasan election year, with its attendant uncertainties, affected the drop.
Of the 76 projects across 17 states, Lagos State had the highest number of projects with 33 projects (43 percent). Ogun State had five (7 percent) and Kaduna, three (4 percent).
The report stated, “domestic investors were the most active, announcing 39 projects with a total worth of $10.8 billion (36 percent), followed by Netherlands, 1 project worth $10 billion (33 percent), Canada, 3 projects worth $2.4 billion (8 percent), Morocco, 2 projects worth US2.1 billion (7 percent), Malaysia, 2 projects worth $1 billion and Singapore announced 1 project worth US$1 billion (3 percent) each”.