Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product hit 7.64 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007, up from 6.05 per cent in the preceding quarter, buoyed by a growth of 10.99 per cent in the non-oil sector, the Central Bank of Nigeria has said.

Remi Babalola

This year, Nigeria aims to attain a GDP growth rate of 13 per cent even though the estimate of nine per cent has been placed for 2008.

“The outlook is positive and everything is trending up,” the Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Remi Babalola, said in Abuja on Friday.
“We are out of the six per cent growth band, which most emerging economies in Africa are in. The economy remains robust,” Babalola said.

Besides, the Africa’s largest crude exporter raked in about N1.5tn during the period as revenue.
“This represented an increase of 19.7 per cent over the proportionate budget estimate, and a decline of 6.1 per cent, compared with the preceding quarter,” the CBN said in its fourth quarter 2007 Economic Report released on Monday.

High oil prices have helped Nigeria, as reserves climbed to over $50bn in January 2008.
The CBN said at N1.2tn, oil receipts, which constituted 81.9 per cent of the total, increased by 27.0 per cent over the budget estimate but declined by 3.2 per cent from the level in the preceding quarter.

“The rise in oil receipts relative to the budget estimate was attributed to the consistent increase in oil prices at the international oil market during the review period. On the other hand, non-oil receipts, at N267.20bn or 18.1 per cent of the total, was lower than the receipts in the preceding quarter and the budget estimate by 19.5 and 4.9 per cent, respectively,” the CBN said.

According to the CBN, the decline in non-oil receipts during the period was attributed to the fall in Value Added Tax and the Independent Revenue of the Federal Government.

Source: Punch