IMF reverses Nigeria’s growth forecast to -4.3% in 2020

OBINNA EZUGWU

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reversed Nigeria’s 2020 economic growth from its earlier projected -5.4 per cent to -4.3 per cent.

The Fund in its latest Economic Outlook released on Tuesday, also projected that Nigeria’s economy would grow by 1.7 per cent in 2021 from a projected slide of -4.3 per cent.

The IMF had in June this year projected that Nigeria’s economy would decline by -5.4 per cent in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But reversing the outlook in its latest projection, the institution also projected that the world economy would fall by -4.4 per cent in 2020, an improvement over an earlier forecast rate of -4.9 per cent made in June.

The Fund equally projected that the world economy will grow by 5.2 per cent in 2021.

On the latest economic outlook, IMF’s Chief Economist, Gita Gopinath, said: “We are projecting a somewhat less severe though still deep recession in 2020, relative to our June forecast,” adding that the revision was driven by better-than-expected growth in advanced economies and China during the second quarter of the year and signs of a more rapid recovery in the third quarter.