Nigeria’s trade sector contracted by 2.43% in real terms in the first quarter of 2021. This is according to the recently published GDP report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Its recorded growth rate represents 0.39% points higher than the 2.82% contraction recorded in the corresponding period of 2020 and 0.77% points higher than -3.2% recorded in the previous quarter (Q4 2020).
Quarter-on-quarter growth stood at -13.10%, which is higher than the quarter-on-quarter growth recorded in the first quarter of 2020 at -13.79%.
However, in nominal terms which do not take into account the impact of inflation, the trade sector’s year-on-year growth stood at 0.13%. This indicates an increase of 0.4% points when compared to the contraction of 0.27% recorded in Q1 2020.
A cursory look at the trend shows that the last time the trade sector recorded positive real term growth was Q1 2019 when it posted a 0.85% real GDP growth. This implies that the sector’s negative performances in recent times might not be attributed to the pandemic.
