FG Set To Release Nigeria’s New GDP Figure….

The Federal Government will on Sunday release the country’s new Gross Domestic Product figure, 15 years after the current one was released.

The country is supposed to be releasing the figure every five years.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, disclosed the plan to State House correspondents on Wednesday at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.

Maku quoted the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as informing the council that the country was ready to rebase its GDP after over one year of hard work by the ministries of Finance and National Planning, the Chief Statistician of the Federation and international agencies like the International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank and the International Development Bank.

Maku explained that with a new and reliable GDP figure that would be released, the government would be able to carry out proper planning for development purposes.

He added that investors would understand better the indices of growth of the various sectors that make up the economy with the new figure.

The minister said, “We received today briefing by the Minister of Finance that after nearly 15 years, Nigeria is now ready to rebase its GDP after more than one year of hard work by the ministries of Finance and National Planning, the Chief Statistician of the Federation and international agencies like the IMF, AfDB and IDB.

“You will recall that the last time that Nigeria issued new statistics and the GDP figure was 15 years ago. And this is not supposed to be so as we are supposed to be doing this every five years. So, we hope that by Sunday, this new GDP figure will be released and the importance of this is that for the first time in 15 years, we will know scientifically what the new GDP figures are, the contributions of every sector to the economy, and we will be able to know the sectors that record the most progress and which ones are lagging behind.

“The importance of rebasing the GDP is to ensure that after every five years, every nation wants to know how much progress the GDP has made. What are the sectors’ contributions? What are the challenges they are facing? Which sectors are moving forward; which ones are lagging behind?

“Inappropriate understanding of the GDP and the details of how the sectors are performing will affect policies. When the figures are hopefully released on Sunday, we will then be able to analyse sector by sector, and that will improve our budgetary planning and national planning, and indicate which sectors need added attention.” (Source - Punch)