By Chijioke Ohuocha
ABUJA (Reuters) -Nigeria’s economy recorded its fastest growth in seven years in 2021 despite a slight slowdown in the fourth quarter due to oil sector woes, the statistics office said on Thursday.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said full-year growth stood at 3.40% in 2021, its fastest rate of expansion since 2014. The growth was higher than central bank’s estimate of 3% and World Bank’s projection of 2.4%.
Africa’s biggest economy recorded growth of 3.98% in the last three months of 2021, its fifth consecutive quarterly expansion following a recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Simon Harry, head of Nigeria’s statistics office, told reporters that air transport, coal mining and other minerals grew the fastest in the quarter while mining, financial and insurance sectors showed strong growth.
The fourth quarter growth was slightly slower than the 4.03% growth rate recorded in the previous quarter.
“Oil refining dragged down growth. The poor performance of oil was due to operational challenges and insecurity coming from pipeline vandalism,” Harry said.
Frequent vandalism and illegal refining in the Niger Delta has kept the sector under pressure. Despite a recovery in oil prices, Nigeria has struggled to meet its production targets.
Oil production stood at 1.50 million barrels per day in the final quarter of 2021, compared with 1.56 million recorded during the same period the previous year, Harry said.
The oil sector contracted by 8.06% in the fourth quarter, a smaller contraction than in the third quarter. That comparatively better performance helped to counter the effect of a 0.71 percentage point decline in growth to 4.73% in the non-oil sector during the period.
“We think that growth will drop back over the coming quarters as favourable base effects fade and oil sector woes persist,” Virag Forizs, emerging market economist at Capital Economics, said.
(Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by Andrew Heavens)
