The Statistician General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale, has debunked reports published by some media outlets that the Nigerian economy is still in recession.
The reports stated that Kale, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in an interview on International News Television, said the economy was out of recession.
A statement released yesterday by NBS’s Head of Public Affairs and International Relations Unit, Sunday Ichedi, stated that the economy exited recession at the second quarter of 2017 with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 0.72 per cent.
Daily Trust noted that the GDP growth rate rose to 1.17 per cent in the third quarter of 2017, 2.11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017 and 1.95 per cent in the first quarter of 2018.
Ichedi said, “We want to emphasise and state categorically that the economy is out of recession and at no time did NBS or its CEO state otherwise as has been reported.”
The bureau further clarified that Kale did not refer to recession, but rather alluded to economic recovery, which is a stage after economic recession, where the economy moved gradually following the end of a recession towards sustained strong growth.
