Growth in the service sector of the Nigeria economy pushed up Gross Domestic product to 5 per cent in the second quarter of 2012. According to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on its website, Nigeria’s real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2021, came in at 5.0 per cent year on year, outperforming analysts projection of 3.6 per cent. This represents the highest quarterly growth numbers since the fourth quarter of 2014 (5.9% y/y) and is supported by a high base-year effect from Q2:2020 when GDP contracted by 6.1 per cent annually due to pandemic disruption. Nevertheless, GDP contracted 0.8 per cent on quarterly basis, as real GDP in monetary term printed at ₦16.90 trillion as against first quarter 2021 figure of ₦16.96 trillion.
The year on year performance was mainly supported by the Non-oil GDP component, as it grew 6.7 per cent compared to the 6.1per cent contraction in second quarter 2020. Conversely, the miserable performance of the Oil sector GDP component extended to the fifth consecutive quarter to print at -12.7% year on year in second quarter of 2021 compared to -6.6 per cent in the same period of 2020. Across sectors, performance was divergent. The Services sector growth improved to 9.3 per cent year on year in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same period of 2020 that was -6.8 per cent, while the Agriculture sector performance was underwhelming, at 1.3 per cent on annual basis, relative to 1.6 per cent in the same period of 2020 and a 5-year average of 2.1 per cent.
Likewise, the Industries sector contracted by 1.2 per cent in second quarter of 2021, despite coming from a low base of -12.1 per cent in the same period of 2020. Activity sectors that recorded growth increased to 16 out of 19 in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 8 in the first quarter of 2021. This underscores the improved recovery momentum of more activity sectors from the pandemic-induced downturn of 2020. However, the major highlight performance came from the Trade activity sector with a record growth of 22.5 per cent year on year, after 8-quarters in recession since first quarter of 2019.
