Nigeria’s real GDP declines to $493bn

By Steve Agbota

NIGERIA’S real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined significantly from $573 billion in 2014 to $483 billion in 2015, representing more than 14 per cent drop in one year.

This was as import/export trading activities slowed down with export dropping by 32 per cent from $82.6 billion in 2014 to $50.7 bil­lion in 2015 and import drop­ping by 21 per cent from 61.6 billion in 2014 to 48.4 billion in 2015. Besides GDP de­cline purchasing power par­ity, however rose from $1.03 trillion in 2014 to $1.11 tril­lion in 2015.

Speaking at the Nige­rian Logistics and Supply Chain: Industry Report 2016 in Lagos, Lead Consultant, ECOWAS Commission for Industry and Private Sector Development, Prof. Ken Ife, said that logistics sector is es­timated at well over N200 bil­lion and is growing at annual rate of 10 per cent.

According to him, regula­tory pressures and investment have led to increased profes­sionalisation and modernisa­tion of the haulage and logis­tics companies. On the over­view, size and the potential of the logistics and supply chain sector, he explained that Ni­geria is among the lowest cost crude oil producer, and with international oil prices fixed in US dollars, could not care less until now that the economy faces severe melt­down with the steep drop in oil prices.

Said he: “To grow a diver­sified export economy, de­velopment of import substi­tution and backward integra­tion policies around increased value addition requires an urgent but fundamental re­view of the transport logistics and supply chain industry and developing our national logistics strategy to achieve greater competitiveness and increased trade facilitation.”

Moving the industry for­ward, he said that transpor­tation, warehousing, cargo consolidation and border clearance of Nigerian com­modities, and hence the na­tion’s global competitiveness, creating the urgent need of an effective National Logistics