The September 2024 Business Expectations Survey (BES) has revealed that manufacturers are pessimistic about their business operations in Nigeria due to insecurity, high interest rates, and high or multiple taxes.
The monthly survey of leading firms conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) examined business sectors’ macroeconomic outlook between September 2024 and March 2025.
The surveyed sectors were: industry, services, and agriculture. The industry sector includes manufacturing, construction, mining, and quarrying, as well as electricity, gas, and water supply. Services include market services and non-market services, while agriculture is a stand-alone sector.
“Respondents were optimistic about the overall business outlook in September 2024. However, the positive outlook in the volume of business activities of the firms shows improved prospects for employment in the same period while insecurity, high interest rates, and High or multiple taxes were the major factors constraining the business activities,” the report said.
In September 2024, business sentiments for the services and agriculture sectors were optimistic at 3.2 and 2.7 points but the industry sector was pessimistic at -3.4 points.
The construction, mining, quarrying, electricity, gas & water supply and non-market services subsectors showed optimism at 19.5, 16.0, and 13.5 points, respectively while manufacturing and market services were pessimistic at -7.2 and -0.5 points.
According to the report, the overall confidence index (CI) of these sectors stood at 3.2 points in September, indicating that respondent firms expressed optimism about the macroeconomy as they expect business conditions to improve.
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The CI is computed as the percentage of firms that answered in the affirmative less the percentage of firms that answered in the negative in each indicator. It improved by 2.3 points to 6.2 points in October, compared with what was obtained in September 2024.
“The optimism in September 2024 was driven by the opinion of respondents from Construction with 19.5 points, Mining, Quarrying, Electricity, Gas & Water Supply (16.0 points), Non-Market Services (13.5 points), and Agriculture (2.7 points),” it said.
It added that respondents expressed confidence in their operations across all sectors apart from the manufacturing sector in September 2024.
“The indices for the Construction; Non-Market Services; Market Services, Mining & Quarrying; Electricity, Gas & Water Supply and Agriculture registered confidence in their operations standing at 31.7, 17.4, 13.4, 8.0 and 4.9 points, respectively,” the report said.
The manufacturing sector, however, indicated less confidence in their operations as indicated with an index of -1.6 points.
During the pre-52nd Annual General Meeting (AGM), Francis Meshioye, president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), said manufacturers are struggling with rising production costs, high borrowing costs, and low consumer patronage.
He expressed his commitment to continuously present policy options and partner with the government to improve manufacturers’ productivity.
“As critical stakeholders in the Nigerian economy, we shall continue to present the government with policy inputs and options and partner with them with a view to co-creating innovative solutions that will free the Nigerian economy from its lacklustre performance and place it on the path of productivity, sustainable growth, and development,” he said.
According to the report, the expected drivers for the optimism on the macroeconomy in October 2024 are construction (24.4 points), non-market services (18.3 points), mining, quarrying, electricity, gas & water supply (16.0 points), agriculture (8.8 points), and market services (7.6 points).
It emphasised that the overall business outlook in October by type of business indicate that all the business types are expected to drive optimism with export-oriented businesses (11.9 points) being the major driver.
The survey revealed that for the next three months, the expected driver of optimism by businesses is export-oriented sector with 23.9 points, both import and export-oriented (21.0 points), importer-oriented and neither import nor export-oriented businesses (3.2 points).
In the next six months, the overall business outlook by type of business indicated that all the business types are expected to drive optimism with both Import and export-oriented businesses (29.9 points) being the major driver.
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