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Recalculation of Nigeria’s GDP showed it has the highest GDP in Africa. Nigeria surpassed South Africa on Sunday to become Africa’s largest economy and 26th largest in the world after the government released updated figures that nearly double estimates for gross domestic product.
Nigerian GDP for 2013 was $509bn, 89 per cent larger than previously stated for last year. The change was made by bringing forward the base year for price calculations to 2010 from 1990, when the structure of the economy was very different and services such as banking and telecoms had barely taken off.
According to Financial Times, the revision will have a psychological impact. It underlines to foreign investors that this country has a large consumer base. It validates the investment thesis- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
“The rise far exceeded the expectations of analysts who had forecast an increase of between 40 and 60 per cent following the rebasing exercise. Most countries do one on a regular basis but Nigeria has not done so since 1990.
“It places Africa’s most populous nation and leading oil producer within reach of its ambition to become one of the world’s top 20 economies above other developing countries such as Thailand, Venezuela and Colombia. It potentially provides a huge boost to the case for investment.
“The revision will have a psychological impact. It underlines to foreign investors that this country has a large consumer base. It validates the investment thesis,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the minister for economy and finance told the FT ahead of a press conference in the capital Abuja. “The idea [of the re-basing] is not to be the biggest; the main objective is to measure the economy properly,” she said.
