The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised Nigeria’s real GDP growth for 2024 down to 3.1% from 3.3% in April.
This adjustment was disclosed in its recent update to the global economic outlook titled “Global Economy in a Sticky Spot,” released on Tuesday.
The report attributes the downgrade in Nigeria’s economic growth to weaker-than-expected activity in the first quarter of 2024.
Furthermore, the IMF has reduced its economic growth projections for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) due to decreased economic activity in Nigeria, from 3.8% to 3.7%.
The report reads, “The forecast for growth in sub-Saharan Africa is revised downward, mainly as a result of a 0.2 percentage point downward revision to the growth outlook in Nigeria amid weaker than expected activity in the first quarter of this year.”
Additionally, the IMF maintained growth forecasts for other robust African economies at 0.9% in 2024 and 1.2% in 2025.
Conversely, Egypt saw a reduction of 0.3 percentage points in its economic growth projections for both 2024 and 2025, down from 3.0% to 2.7% and from 4.4% to 4.1% respectively.
It is worth noting that in April 2024, the IMF revised Nigeria’s economic growth forecast to 3.3% for 2024.
This adjustment follows Nigeria’s GDP decline of 2.98% in Q1 2024, attributed to economic challenges as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics.