COVID-19: FG Predicts Q1 2021 Economic Recovery Timeline 

The Federal Government on Wednesday raised hopes of a rebound for the Nigerian economy from its COVID-19 induced recession, contrary to fears that it might linger for years.

Speaking at the end of the 15th virtual Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said from the report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Nigerian economy was running better than expected.

According to her, the Nigerian economy will begin to recover by the first quarter of 2021, adding that measures are being put in place to stabilize it and ensure it continues to run despite disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The minister said: “We presented a memo to Council in respect of the second quarter GDP report, earlier released by the National Bureau of Statistics on August 24.  “Why the memo is so dated is because there was a retreat last week and we couldn’t get scheduled as well. Still for us, the information is important and topical.

“The GDP report shows that the economy went into negative growth of -6.10 per cent in the second quarter but that the aggregate performance for half year 2020 is -2.1 percent. This performance of -6.10 per cent is a good performance in the sense that it is better than what we had projected at second quarter performance to be at -7.2per cent”.

Meanwhile the total value of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) rose to N143.65 billion in the last seven months of 2020.

According to the NSE’s Domestic & Foreign Portfolio Investment Report, total foreign transactions carried out year till date (YTD) was about N431.22 billion whilst total domestic transactions YTD stood at N675.55 billion during the period under review.

The report stated that the total value of domestic transactions outperformed transactions executed by foreign investors by N244.33 billion or 56.66 per cent.

As at July 31, 2020, total transactions at the nation’s bourse fell by 19.92 per cent from N128.88 billion (about $333.25 million) in June 2020 to N103.21 billion (about $265.55 million) in July 2020.

The performance of the current month when compared to the performance in July 2019 (N113.47 billion) revealed that total transactions decreased by 9.04 per cent. In July 2020, the total value of transactions executed by domestic investors outperformed transactions executed by foreign investors by circa 32 per cent.

A further analysis of the total transactions executed between the current and prior month (June 2020) revealed that total domestic transactions decreased by 5.40 per cent from N72.54 billion in June to N68.62 billion in July 2020.