The World Bank has projected that Nigeria’s economy will experience a slow growth in 2023. In a report titled ‘African Pulse’, the global financial institution revealed that the country’s growth rates will be reduced from 3.3 percent to 3.2 percent in order to alleviate rising inflationary pressures.
The report also shows that South African economy will rise further to 1.4 percent in 2023 from its current 1.9 percent due to structural constraint but will return to 1.8 percent in 2024.
While recovery from the pandemic shock is incomplete, higher inflation and aggressive monetary policies, the deteriorated labour market and weak confidence in the monetary value will weigh in on growth and private consumption in both countries, according to the World Bank.
Even Foreign Exchange Reserves in Nigeria decreased to 38,320 USD million in September from 39,180 USD million in August of 2022.
According to the latest reports from the Central Bank of Nigeria, this is 5.42 percent decrease in foreign reserves in one year after the reserves plunged by 706 million dollars last month, despite rise in oil prices. It means that this year alone, Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves have been depleted by billions of dollars.
The report also shows that the Nigerian economy is suffering from lack of foreign exchange because currency traders continue to complain about limited forex liquidity. For some of the local currency to decline more at FX markets, despite the central bank’s intervention at forex markets, the exchange rates at the official window have been relatively stable but mostly inaccessible to most Nigerians.
On Tuesday 11 October 2022, the group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr Mele Kyari, announced that the NNPCL as a corporation grew its profit after tax and now saves from 287 billion naira and 15.86 trillion in 2020 to 674 billion naira and 16.3 trillion naira and 2021 respectively.
Addressing news men at a press conference in Abuja, the NNPCL boss maintained that the group’s 2021 profit was contained in the group audited financial statement of the oil firm for the year ended 31 December 2021. He noted that all major trunk lines conveying crude oil to export terminals are currently shut down in order to avert further oil theft within the Niger Delta.
Mr Kyari explained that efforts by the oil firms’ security agencies and surveillance contractors were paying off and that about 400, 000 barrels of crude would be added to the country’s outputs the next few days to boost the country’s crude oil production for the quarter.
