Nigeria’s Economy Grows by 3.13% in Q1 2025 Following GDP Rebasing
By Patience Ikpeme
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that Nigeria’s economy expanded by 3.13 per cent in real terms during the First Quarter of 2025.
This growth figure follows the much-anticipated rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a process that utilized 2019 as the new base year for calculations. The Statistician General, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, made this known in Abuja on Monday.
Prince Adeniran explained that the rebasing procedure involved benchmarking previous quarterly GDP estimates to the rebased annual figures, which allowed for the alignment of the old economic series with the newly rebased estimates.
This process yielded a new set of quarterly GDP data that formed the basis for comparing the Q1 2025 performance. The current growth rate of 3.13% is an improvement compared to the 2.27% recorded in the first quarter of 2024.
The Statistician General further indicated that the economic performance in the quarter under review was primarily propelled by the Services sector. This sector recorded a robust growth of 4.33 per cent and contributed significantly, accounting for 57.50 per cent of the aggregate GDP.
The Agriculture sector also experienced a positive shift, growing by 0.07 per cent, a notable recovery from the contraction of -1.79 per cent observed in the first quarter of 2024. Similarly, the Industry sector posted a growth of 3.42 per cent, up from 2.35 per cent in Q1 2024.
In terms of their share of the aggregate GDP, both the services and industry sectors contributed more in Q1 2025 when contrasted with the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
In nominal terms, the aggregate GDP at basic prices reached N94,051,733.20 million in the first quarter of 2025. This nominal performance represents a substantial increase when compared to the first quarter of 2024, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N79,505,265.15 million. This indicates a year-on-year nominal growth of 18.30 per cent.
Despite the rebasing of the GDP, Nigeria maintains its position as the fourth-largest economy in Africa in terms of nominal GDP. According to the NBS, the country’s economy was valued at N372.82 trillion in 2024.
When converted using the prevailing exchange rate of N1,529.53 per dollar, this translates to approximately $243.527 billion. Nigeria’s economy, in dollar terms, trails behind South Africa, with an economy worth an estimated $410.338 billion; Egypt, at $347.342 billion; and Algeria, valued at $268.885 billion.
