by Seyi Lawal

 

 

Nigeria’s economy is expected to grow 6.5 percent year-on-year in 2012, down almost one percent from 7.4 percent in 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported.

 

Data revealed in a Reuter report recently showed that it was due to disruptions to oil production and on-going weaknesses in the economies of developed countries that buy crude from Africa’s largest producer.

 

“The projected lower economic growth in 2012 could be partially attributed to external shocks from existing growth concerns in the US, Euro-area, and China,” the NBS said in its 2012-2015 economic outlook report.

 

“Lower economic growth could also result from possible lower domestic crude oil production due to supply disruptions, which have recently been on the increase.”

 

The NBS said its projections were calculated using the Bayesian vector autoregressive approach, which takes into consideration prior economic performance between 1996 – 2011.

 

See more statistics from the report:

 

GDP growth was expected to average 8 percent in 2013, 7.43 percent in 2014 and 7.25 percent in 2015.

 

Inflation was expected to average 13.6 percent this year, up from 10.6 percent recorded in 2011, the data showed.

 

“Inflation is expected to trend up mostly due to the lingering effects of the partial removal of the fuel subsidy on food and non-food prices as a result of higher transportation costs,” the NBS document said.

 

It predicted inflation could rise even more sharply if the government fully removed costly fuel import subsidies.