24 May 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, has reacted to the recent National Bureau of Statistics’s Gross Domestic Product report for the first quarter of this year, which showed that the economy contracted by 0.52 per cent in the period.
They are of the belief that the nation’s economy would come out of recession in the third quarter of this year.
Said the Director-General, LCCI, Mr. Muda Yusuf, said: The 0.52 GDP contraction recorded in the first quarter is an improvement over the 1.73 contraction the economy recorded in December 2016.
“We are already on the verge of moving from the negative territory to positive territory. In December, it was -1.73 per cent; in March, it was -0.52; it is an improvement”.
“Some of the positive developments we witnessed in Q1 such as better foreign exchange policy, improvement in ease of doing business and creation of FX window will be reflected in the Q2 result that will be released later this year”.
On his part, the President of MAN, Mr. Frank Jacobs, said: “In as much as we are trying to get out of recession, it is not going to happen overnight. We expect that from Q3, we will begin to come out of recession. The current figure only shows that we are not yet out of the woods yet. We have to see how to manage production and seek to cope with some of the challenges facing manufacturers.”