Nigeria’s 2015 GDP, Lowest In 15 Years – Adeosun

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun on Friday said the growth recorded by the country in the 2015 fiscal period was the lowest in the last 15 years.

 

 

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 2.84 per cent year on year in real terms in the third quarter of last year.

 

 

The growth of 2.84 per cent represents an increase of 0.49 percentage points when compared to the 2.35 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2015.

 

 

Adeosun said in a statement issued by her Special Assistant, Media, Mr. Festus Akanbi that to stimulate growth and avoid recession, there is need for a spending stimulus by the government.

 

 

According to the minister, this was what informed the decision to send a budget of N6.07tn with a capital expenditure of N1.8tn to stimulate economic development.

 

 

The minister said the planned N1.8tn capital investment in 2016 by the Federal Government was key to driving economic growth.

 

 

The assured that the economic outlook in the medium term was strong and that if the planned investments in capital were undertaken then based on the GDP growth projections, Nigeria would become a leading global economy.

 

 

The statement reads in part, “She said that government would work to ensure that consumption from our huge population would drive internal growth across a number of key sectors.

 

 

“She assured that if the disciplined implementation of the plans could be attained then Nigeria would finally be able to diversify and the situation where the entire nation is focused on the oil price would end.

 

 

“She explained that that public investment would attract further investment from the private sector and that investments in power and transport would increase the competitive position of Nigerian businesses.”

 

 

On the planned borrowing, the minister explained that government was seeking the lowest cost of funds and was therefore consulting with the multilateral agencies, which offered concessional rates of interest as low as 1.5 per cent before looking at the commercial Eurobond Market.

 

 

“She said that the financing strategy was to restructure much of the existing debts, which has short maturity and align it with the investment plans of the government in line with its Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

 

 

“She assured that government was ensuring that projects to be undertaken would create direct and indirect revenues, which would be used to repay the obligations,” the statement added.

 

 

Credit : Punch

China, World’s Largest Economy; Overtakes U.S.

Us Dollar Versus China Yuan

Chris Giles at the Financial Times flagged up the change. He also alerted us back in April this year that it was all about to happen.

The simple logic is that prices aren’t the same in each country: A shirt will cost you less in Shanghai than San Francisco, so it’s not entirely reasonable to compare countries without taking this into account. Though a typical person in China earns a lot less than the typical person in the US, simply converting a Chinese salary into dollars underestimates how much purchasing power that individual, and therefore that country, might have. The Economist’s Big Mac Index is a great example of these disparities.

So the IMF measures both GDP in market exchange terms, and in terms of purchasing power. On the purchasing power basis, China is overtaking the US right about now and becoming the world’s biggest economy.

Also, according to the IMF by the end of 2014, China will make up 16.48% of the world’s purchasing-power adjusted GDP (or $17.632 trillion), and the US will make up just 16.28% (or $17.416 trillion).

IMF, Google Public Data Explorer Adjusted for purchasing power, the IMF thinks China’s economy is now the world’s largest.

It’s not all sore news for the US. It’ll be some time yet until the lines cross over in raw terms, not adjusted for purchasing power. By that measure, China still sits more than $6.5 trillion lower than the US and isn’t likely to overtake for quite some time. But in terms of the raw market value of China’s currency, it still has a long way to go.