Nigeria will release its new Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figure on Sunday, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, told State House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting on Wednesday.
Maku explained that the decision was arrived at after the FEC “received today a report from the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that after nearly 15 years Nigeria is now ready to rebase its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), after more than one year of hard work by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of National Planning, the Chief Statistician of the Federation and International Agencies particularly the IMF, Economic Commission for West Africa, the African Development Bank and other agencies.
“Right now, the Federal Executive Council was briefed today that on Sunday, by the grace of God, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel around 2:00 p.m., Nigeria will formally release the new GDP figures for the country.”
Maku said that the new GDP would specify the rate of growth or decline, impact, challenges, and performance of each sector of the economy in line with international standards.
He said that sectors such as telecommunications and Nollywood that had been unexploited, but, which had recorded significant growth and made massive impact on the economy in recent years, would now be taken into account.
“For the first time in 15 years, we will know, scientifically, what the new GDP is and the contributions of every sector to the economy.
“We will be able to know the sectors that recorded the most progress and which ones are lagging behind.
“We will also know a few economic sectors that have emerged in the last 10 years, which have not been captured properly in the last GDP.
“For example, the telecom sector, which emerged in the year 2000; we can know scientifically the impact the sector has made on the Nigerian economy and GDP growth.
“Secondly, the Nollywood industry is another huge sector that has blossomed, particularly in the last 10 years, making significant contributions to job creation, but not captured in the GDP.
“Now we have rebased the GDP to really know, scientifically, how much impact it has made on the economy,” he explained.
Maku further told reporters that FEC was also briefed by the Federal Ministry of Health on the alleged outbreak of Ebola virus in Nigeria.
He said, “FEC was informed that the health ministry experts, within the week, checked out the reports of purported outbreak of the disease and found none to be true.”
The minister said that the ministry had given assurance to Nigerians of its preparedness to contain the virus should there be an outbreak in the country.
“Citizens are reassured that there is no Ebola fever in the country and all the checks so far undertaken declare clearly that we don’t have it.
“Yes, there are some cases in two or three West African countries but the ministry has assured that should there be anything like that within our boundary it will be quickly tackled,“ he said.
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