…As WEF, ILO Forecast Challenging Year For Globally Economy
The World Bank has revised Nigeria’s economic growth projection as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 3.5% in 2025 and slightly higher to 3.7% in 2026.
These forecasts, which are contained in the development finance institution’s latest ‘Global Economic Prospects’ report, if achieved, will represent a better scorecards for the managers of the nation’s economy, especially at a time the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) had predicted economic challenges and uncertainties in the global economy this year.
For instance, the WEF, in a news release on its latest ‘Chief Economists Outlook’ report’s findings issued on Thursday, indicated that global economy would face significant challenges in 2025, with 56% of chief economists surveyed expecting conditions to weaken during the year.
The WEF reported that only 17% of the economists foresee an improvement, pointing to heightened uncertainty in key regions and the need for measured policy responses worldwide.
Barely few hours after the WEF predicted a very challenging year for the global economy this year, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in its published ‘World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2025’, observed that the global economy was slowing down, making it harder for labour markets to recover fully.
In its latest publication, the World Bank recalled that Nigeria’s economic growth improved to an estimated 3.3% in 2024, driven primarily by strong activity in the services sector, especially the financial and telecommunication services.
The report partly reads: “In Nigeria, growth increased to an estimated 3.3 per cent in 2024, mainly driven by services sector activity, particularly in financial and telecommunication services.
“Macroeconomic and fiscal reforms helped improve business confidence. In response to rising inflation and a weak naira, the central bank tightened monetary policy.
“Meanwhile, the fiscal deficit narrowed due to a surge in revenues driven by the elimination of the implicit foreign exchange subsidy, following the unification of the exchange rate and improved revenue administration.
“Growth in Nigeria is forecast to strengthen to an average of 3.6 per cent a year in 2025-26.
“Following monetary policy tightening in 2024, inflation is projected to gradually decline, boosting consumption and supporting growth in the services sector, which continues to be the main driver of growth
“Oil production is expected to increase over the forecast period but remain below the OPEC quota. The baseline forecast implies that per capita income growth will remain weak over the forecast horizon”, the bank added.
According to the multilateral development finance institution, Nigeria’s projected growth this year and 2026 will be aided by gradually declining inflation, following monetary tightening and other measures in 2024, and boost domestic consumption and further support the services sector, which remains the main driving sector of the economic growth.
Despite the promising outlook, the World Bank identified persistent risks, including inflationary pressures, weak naira, high debt-servicing costs, and vulnerabilities in fiscal buffers, in Nigeria’s economic recovery drive this year.
On its regional growth forecast, the World Bank identified the Nigerian and South Africa’s economies as potentially the major contributors to Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA’s) growth, which rose on the average to 2.2% in 2024.
