…. economic expansion is not backed by productive transformation.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) commends the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the rigorous technical work that led to the rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Equally noteworthy is the transparent and inclusive approach adopted by NBS that enabled strategic stakeholders to contribute to the GDP rebasing processes. MAN notes the reported real GDP growth of 3.13 percent in Q1 2025 from 2.27% in Q1 2024, a modest improvement, which indicates that the economy is capable of recovery.
The rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a critical statistical upgrade that enhances the accuracy of national accounts and reflects structural changes in the economy. The revised nominal GDP estimate, showing an 18.3% year-on-year increase, is a direct outcome of improved data capture, especially in agriculture, services, and informal sector activities.
Notwithstanding, MAN strongly cautions against interpreting this nominal expansion as evidence of significant economic progress. This notwithstanding, and despite the upward revision, real GDP growth remains weak, averaging just 1.95% between 2020 and 2024. This sluggish real growth shows the underlying fragility of Nigeria’s productive base and the capacity of the economy to deliver sustainable and inclusive development.
It is important for us to express our concern over the declining role of the industrial sector, a trend that the rebased figures made unmistakably clear. Industry’s share of GDP fell from 27.65% in the 2010 base year to 21.08% under the 2019 rebased structure, marking a structural shift away from production toward low-productivity service activities. While the rebasing exercise reveals a more diversified economy, it also exposes the underperformance of industry, particularly manufacturing, a sector which should be the backbone of Nigeria’s economic transformation.
Manufacturing is structurally weak, with sub-sectors that should be growth drivers performing below potential, as indicated in the report. Based on the figure released, the average annual growth rate of the manufacturing sector between 2019 and 2024 is negative (-0.76%). This means Nigeria’s manufacturing sector has been shrinking in real terms over the last five years. The rebasing confirms that Nigeria’s economy may be statistically larger, but it is not more productive, nor more industrialised.
MAN, therefore, calls on the government to treat the rebased GDP not as a celebration of growth, but as a strindent call for structural industrial reforms. Nigeria must re-industrialise to achieve inclusive growth, build export capacity, and reduce dependence on primary commodities and informal activities. We urge the government to prioritise manufacturing in policy, financing, and infrastructure development, because without a strong industrial base, GDP expansion may just become a hollow statistic.
Potential Impact of the Latest GDP Size on Confidence in the Nigerian Economy
The upward revision of Nigeria’s GDP to $243 billion could offer a lift in investors confidence and improve headline macroeconomic ratios such as the debt-to-GDP ratio. This should be a sign of economic strength. However, confidence in the economy is anchored not just on size, but on structural resilience, depth of industrial capacity, and productivity growth.
In this regard, we need to refocus on the development of the real and high-impact driven sector. The rebasing exercise, while statistically necessary, may obscures some of the economy’s deep-rooted challenges. Industrial output remains largely declining. Following the rebasing, the industrial sector’s share of GDP dropped from 27.65% in the 2010 base year to 21.08% in the 2019 base year. More worrisome is the underperformance of the manufacturing sector. Despite its critical role in job creation, export diversification, and economic transformation, the sector’s contribution to GDP remains low and increasingly volatile. Key subsectors such as oil refining and motor vehicle assembly have recorded consistent declines in real output, eroding Nigeria’s industrial performance.
This scenario speaks loudly for sustained industry-centric policies, which is already been exemplified by the Industrial Revolution Working Group, infrastructure investments, and improved access to long-term finance to revitalize the industrial sector. This is the way for the growth in GDP to alleviate poverty, create jobs, and contribute to macroeconomic stability.
MAN strongly advocates for a manufacturing-led growth strategy. This must include sector-specific interventions such as energy reliability for manufacturers, incentivised local content policies, streamlined regulatory frameworks, and strategic trade facilitation to boost competitiveness.
In essence, the potential impact on confidence in the Nigerian economy may include the following:
➢ boost investors’ confidence by lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio, signaling improved fiscal sustainability, better credit rating and reducing perceived sovereign risk.
➢ indicative of improved measures and reflection of emerging sectors like fintech and creative industries. This will reveal untapped investment opportunities.
➢ Enhanced statistical transparency and alignment with global standards. This may reinforce credibility that enables investors to make better-informed decisions, grounded in reliable macroeconomic indicators.
However, its impact on economic confidence will remain fragile if growth is not inclusive, inflation remains high, fiscal and monetary vulnerabilities persist and there are no tangible policies to improve real sector productivity, especially in manufacturing.
- Factors Responsible for the Current Size of the GDP
We can attribute the factors responsible for the current size of Nigeria’s GDP predominantly to the justification provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the rebasing exercise. First, the expansion in GDP is largely due to broader sectoral coverage. For the first time, underreported and previously excluded sub-sectors such as the digital economy, modular refineries, entertainment and creative industries, water transport, and pension administration have been incorporated into national accounts. This expansion has understandably inflated the nominal value of GDP by capturing more of the economic activity occurring in these emerging areas.
These sectors have experienced rapid growth and increasing formalization, significantly expanding the economic base and elevating overall GDP figures.
Second, there have been notable improvements in the quality and depth of data used to estimate GDP. Datasets from recent nationwide exercises, such as the National Business Sample Census, National Agricultural Sample Census, and Living Standards Surveys, have strengthened the estimation of informal sector activities, especially in agriculture and household consumption.
Third, sectoral growth differentials have played a significant role. The services sector, particularly telecommunications, trade, real estate, and creative industries, grew rapidly in 2024. Similarly, agriculture’s share rose to 27.8%, largely as a result of improved enumeration of crop and livestock activities. These sectors have thus disproportionately influenced the expansion in GDP size.
However, the industrial sector, particularly manufacturing, continues to underperform. Between 2019 and 2021, industry contracted significantly in real terms, with only marginal recovery by 2023. Critically, manufacturing growth remains uneven and fragile across sub-sectors.
Like I previously mentioned, while this statistical revision offer a clearer statistical portrait of Nigeria’s economy, they also expose the structural weaknesses in the country’s productive base, particularly in manufacturing, which is central to any ambition of building a resilient, competitive, and inclusive economy.
As always, MAN calls for urgent rebalancing of economic policies in favour of productive sectors, especially manufacturing. The current structure, heavily reliant on services and primary production, is not sustainable for long-term development. Government should prioritise:
- Targeted industrial policy interventions to revive ailing sub-sectors such as textiles and vehicle assembly.
- Significant improvement in investment in energy infrastructure, particularly electricity reliability and gas supply to industrial zones.
- Data-driven support mechanisms, using insights from the improved GDP data to direct incentives and financing to high-potential but underperforming manufacturing clusters.
The rebased GDP should not be seen as an endpoint, but as a starting point for strategic reform. If Nigeria is to achieve inclusive and sustained growth, manufacturing must move from the margins to the mainstream of economic policy.
- Can Nigeria Achieve Its Projected $1 Trillion Economy?
The aspiration for Nigeria to become a $1 trillion economy by 2030 is an ambitious but technically attainable goal over the medium to long term. However, achieving this target is not a matter of arithmetic growth. It demands a strategic transformation of the economy’s foundational structure, particularly the industrial sector. With the newly rebased nominal GDP at $243 billion, reaching the $1 trillion threshold by 2030 would require consistent nominal growth of 12–14% annually, assuming currency stability, or real GDP growth of 6–7% per annum, a figure that is nearly double the current real growth rate of 3.38% recorded in 2024.
Yet, the road to this milestone is fraught with structural bottlenecks that must be urgently addressed. A growth path that merely expands the size of low-productivity sectors, such as informal trade and consumption-driven services, will only deepen inequality, reinforce economic vulnerability, and perpetuate jobless growth.
To make a credible path to a $1 trillion economy, Nigeria must prioritise an industrial-led development model. This requires a deliberate and strategic revival of industrial output, with a particular focus on high-value-added and exportable manufactured goods, supported by unmitigated government patronage. Reliable and affordable energy supply must be central to this effort; without stable and cost-effective electricity, the manufacturing sector cannot thrive and contribute meaningfully to the GDP.
Equally critical is the upgrade of core infrastructure such as transport networks, logistics systems, and broadband connectivity to support efficient production and regional trade integration. A coherent, investor-friendly policy environment across fiscal, trade, and monetary domains is also essential to attract and retain long-term capital.
Above all, Nigeria must boost productivity across strategic subsectors such as agro-processing, textiles, pharmaceuticals, and light engineering, where industrial linkages and employment potential are strongest.
Strengthening the naira, curtailing inflation and ensuring inclusive, sustained growth must be central to any credible path toward this milestone.
We should avoid a seeing the actualisation in nominal terms that may be inflated by rising prices. Such growth without real sector expansion risks being purely cosmetic. Moreover, any substantial depreciation of the naira against the dollar would undermine progress, as the target is dollar-denominated. This is why the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria consistently advocate for policies that drive real productivity, particularly through enhanced local manufacturing and high-valued export performance. The Industrial Revolution Working Group has a lot of work to do in this direction.
On this note, MAN calls on the government to make industrial transformation the anchor of Nigeria’s economic strategy. Achieving a $1 trillion economy is not simply about increasing output. It is about building an economy that works, that creates jobs, that competes, and that uplifts the majority. Without a strong, modern, and competitive manufacturing base, the $1 trillion goal may be a struggle and measured only in numbers, not in national prosperity.
Conclusion
The GDP rebasing is welcome as a critical statistical upgrade that enhances the accuracy of national accounts and reflects structural changes in the economy. However, it reveals worrisomely that Nigeria is not industrialising yet, and that its economic expansion is not backed by productive transformation.
