Nigeria welcomes Q3 GDP, says economy steadily improving

Nigeria has welcome the latest improvement in the country's economic growth and promised to continue to work diligently to ensure inclusive growth through pursuant to a raft of policy initiatives, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced 1.40 percent growth in the country's GDP for the third quarter of the year in its latest bulletin on Monday.
"The Buhari administration welcomes the new growth figures and will continue to work diligently on a daily basis to ensure inclusive growth, to which we have always been committed through the active pursuit of a raft of policy initiatives, past and present," a statement from the office of the vice president said on Monday.
He said the country will government will be ramping up the implementation pace of the Economic Recovery & Growth Plan, formulated last year to restructure the Africa's biggest economy in the wake of it slipping into recession.
"Such initiatives include but not limited to the Social Investment Programmes, Anchor Borrowers Scheme, longstanding Budget Support Facilities to the States, plus other bailout packages, ensuring the comprehensive payment of workers’ salary & pension backlogs among others," the statement said.
"The latest NBS GDP figures show that the Nigerian economy grew by 1.4 percent year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter of 2017. This is a steady continuation of the positive growth of 0.55 percent (now revised to 0.72%) experienced in Q2 2017 and reinforces the exit from the 2016 recession," noted the vice president who heads the country's economic management team.
Osinbajo expressed confidence that the economy will continue to grow given these developments and the reform, and improvements in the business environment shown by the upward movement of 24 places in the recently released World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Rankings which was better than the target of 20 places specified in the ERGP.
“The overall picture that emerges is that the economy is on the path of recovery. As inflation trends downwards, and with a steady implementation of the ERGP, real growth should soon be realised across all sectors in a mutually reinforcing manner.”