In the first three months of 2020, the Nigerian economy reported its worst growth in one year at 1.87 percent. However, the performance from the early effects of the covid-19 disruption is still better than the figures from the 2016 recession.
READ ALSO: Here’re the ten best performing sectors of the economy in 2019
The slow growth which is 0.23percentage points less than the 2.10 percent reported in the Q1 2019 and 0.68 percentage points worse than the 2.55 percent reported in Q4 2019 was fueled by the poor performance recorded in both oil and non-oil sectors.
Of the eighteen sectors of the Nigerian economy covered by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the following industries reported the highest growth in the first three months of 2020 and thus emerged as the best performers.
Finance and Insurance
While many industries have been disrupted by the outbreak of coronavirus, Nigeria’s financial industry is one of the few less hit by the pandemic.
The financial and Insurance sector grew by 13.19 percentage points year-on-year in Q1 2020. From a contraction of 7.60 percent in Q1 2019, the sector leveraged on contactless payment, increase in deposits and transactions to post a growth of 20.79 percent in the first three months of 2020, the fastest expanding sector in the review quarter.
Meanwhile, financial institutions were responsible for most of the sector’s growth as it reported a growth expansion of about 33 percentage points, from -9.21 percent in Q1 2019 to 24 percent in the corresponding quarter in 2020.
The insurance sector, on the other hand, recorded a marginal increase of 0.36 as it expanded from the 2.58 percent reported in Q1 2019 to 2.94 percent at the end of March 2020.
Mining and Quarrying
With an expansion of almost 6 percent year-on-year, the Mining and Quarrying sector of the Nigerian economy was the second-fastest growing industry in the quarter under review.
The sector grew from a contraction of 1.37 percent in Q1 2019 to 4.58 percent in the corresponding quarter of 2020. Despite reporting slow growth in Q1 2020 compared to the 4.43 percent in Q4 2019, the sector was able to leverage the performance of Metal Ores, Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas to post one of the highest year-on-year expansion.
Public Administration
This sector was the third fastest-growing in the first three months of 2020 with after growth printed at -8.72 percent year-on-year compared to the-14.21percent in the corresponding quarter of 2019. Even though the Q1 2020 growth was worse than the Q2, Q3 and Q4 figures of 2019 put together, the sector leveraged on base effect to secure the third position on the list of best-performing sectors
Human Health and Social Services
The list of best-performing sectors wouldn’t have been complete without the health industry as it is one of the most important parts of any economy at this time when millions around the world are battling to either survive the COVID-19 infection or are depending on the industry for support to survive the deadly virus.
The Human Health and Social Services reported a growth of 1.22 percentage points in the first three months of 2020. From the -0.16 percent reported in the first quarter of 2019 the sector after contracting by 0.56 percent in Q4 2019 expanded and report a growth of 1.06 percent in Q1 2020
