The National Bureau of Statistics says Nigeria’s gross domestic product grew by 3.13 per cent on a year-on-year basis in real terms in the first quarter of 2025, with newly released data revealing that nominal GDP rose to N372.82 trillion in 2024.

The statistician-general of the federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, made the announcement at a news briefing on the Rebased GDP Results released by NBS on Monday in Abuja.

Mr Adeniran stated that this growth rate was higher than the 2.27 per cent recorded in the first quarter of 2024.

He stated that the performance of the GDP in Q1 2025 was primarily driven by the services sector, which recorded a growth rate of 4.33 per cent and contributed 57.50 per cent to the aggregate GDP.

Mr Adeniran said the agriculture sector grew by 0.07 per cent in Q1 2025  from the growth of -1.79 per cent recorded in the first quarter of 2024.

He said the Industry sector witnessed a growth rate of 3.42  per cent, an improvement from 2.35 per cent recorded in Q1 2024.

Mr Adeniran said in terms of share of the GDP, the services sector and industry sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in Q1 2025  compared to Q1 2024. He stated that in Q1 2025, the aggregate GDP at basic price stood at N94,051,733.20 million in nominal terms.

“This performance is higher when compared to Q1 of 2024, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N79,505,265.15 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 18.30 per cent,” he stated.

He provided a further breakdown of the rebased GDP results for 2019 to 2024, disclosing that in nominal terms, Nigeria’s economy was estimated at N205.09 trillion in 2019, N213.64 trillion in 2020, N243.30 trillion in 2021, N274.23 trillion in 2022, N314.02 trillion in 2023, and N372.82 trillion in 2024.

In 2019, the rebased nominal GDP at basic prices represented a 41.7 per cent increase over the nominal GDP of 2010. In 2020, it was 39.0 per cent,  38.7 per cent in 2021, 36.1 per cent in 2022, 34.6 per cent in 2023, and 35.4 per cent in 2024. In real terms, the GDP growth rate for 2020 was -6.96 per cent, a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We came out of that negative growth in 2021 when we reported 0.95 per cent growth.  Higher growth rates were also reported in 2022, 2023, and 2024  at 4.32 per cent,  3.04 per cent and 3.38 per cent, respectively,” Mr Adeniran explained.

He said ranking economic activities based on the 2019 base year,  crop production was first at 17.58 per cent,  followed by trade at 17.42 per cent and real estate at 10.78 per cent. This was followed by telecommunications at 6.78 per cent, and crude oil and natural gas took fifth place at  5.85 per cent.

Real estate ranked third, displacing crude oil and natural gas to fifth place, which had usually been in third place before the rebasing. This is due to better coverage of the activities of the real estate informal sector, now putting it in third place.”

In terms of broad classification, the services sector remained the largest, contributing the highest to GDP at 53.09 per cent, as compared to 52.60 per cent before the rebasing. This was followed by the agriculture sector at 25.83 per cent and the industry sector at 21.08 per cent.

Mr Adeniran stated that better coverage was provided to the water transport sub-sector and the service sector, resulting in a significant improvement in the sector.

“The economic activities in the service sector with the most notable changes include water transport; art, entertainment, and recreation; transport services;  administration and support services; and human health and social services.

He stated that the coverage of the agricultural sector was enhanced following the National Agricultural Sample Census and the National Agricultural Sample Survey conducted by the NBS.

Mr. Adeniran said the contribution of the informal sector to the GDP in 2019 was estimated at N86.85 trillion, representing 42.5 per cent of the GDP, compared to 41.4 per cent recorded previously.

The last rebasing exercise was conducted in 2014 with 2010 as the base year. However, the recent rebasing exercise, which covered the period between 2019 and 2023, has 2019 as the new base year due to the relative stability of the domestic economy.

The rebased GDP also includes updated methodologies based on best practices and official statistical guidelines.

(NAN)