Abuja, Nigeria- Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning has said the economy grew by 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022.
“The Federal Executive Council (FEC) received a report from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning for the first quarter of 2022.
I know that this report has been out in the media since last week Monday, but because we didn’t have an FEC meeting last week we presented it today.
The report shows that the economy grew by 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to a growth of 0.5 percent in the corresponding period in 2021.
This growth shows a gradual economic stability from the recession that we witnessed in 2020 and also it shows the sixth quarter of positive growth that the Nigerian economy has presented.
So of the 46 economic activities, the bulk sector performance shows that the services sector grew strongly by 4.7 percent, agriculture also grew by 3.61 percent, industry on the other hand contracted by minus 6.81 percent and there’s also a significant contraction in the crude oil, petroleum and natural gas sector of 26.04 percent.
We are very mindful of the fact that unless we have most of the sectors growing especially the growth in the jobs impacted sectors, this growth that is positive will not be directly felt by the people. We also reported to Council that inflation has started going upward to the extent that the monetary authorities of the Central Bank have had to adjust the Monetary Policy Rate to 13 percent at the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting and that’s an attempt to manage the cost of inflation.
So, Council has decided to set up a special effort to look at the sectors that are not growing and also to look at how we can grow the other sectors better,” said the Minister.
In addition, the Minister said the Federal Government will soon convene a meeting of the National Food Security Council.
“(We need to) very quickly to address the issue of food inflation, and also provide a plan and some methods in which we can reduce the cost of food to support improved food prices for the citizenry,” said Ahmed.
