Nigeria overtakes South Africa,now Africa’s biggest economy.

The Federal Government on Sunday finally released the result of the rebased Gross Domestic Product for the country, which showed that the Nigerian economy had overtaken South Africa’s as the biggest on the continent.

The Statistician General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, who presented the outcome of the preliminary estimates of the GDP in Abuja, said that following the rebasing exercise, the country’s real GDP for 2011 and 2012 now stood at 5.09 per cent and 6.66 per cent, while the economy grew by 7.41 per cent in real terms last year.

He stated that the numbers were still going through a final refinement and that by June this year; the final estimates of the nominal GDP would be released.

Rebasing of the national account series, which includes the GDP, is the process of replacing an old base year with a new and more recent one.

The base year provides the reference point to which future values of the GDP are compared and it is a normal statistical procedure undertaken by the national statistical offices of countries to ensure that national account statistics present the most accurate reflection of the economy.

The key benefits of the rebasing exercise are that its results enable policy makers and analysts to obtain a more accurate set of economic statistics that are truer reflection of current realities for evidence-based decision-making.

Rebasing also reveals a more accurate estimate of the size and structure of the economy by incorporating new activities, which were not previously captured in the computational framework.

This is the first time the Nigerian economy will be rebased in almost a quarter of a century.

The presentation of the new figures was attended by key officials from both the public and private sectors of the economy as well as representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

Kale said the results from the rebased estimates indicated that the nominal GDP for the country had now become larger than previously estimated.

For instance, he said the rebased nominal GDP for 2010 was N54.20tn; while for 2011, 2012 and 2013, he put the figures at N63.25 trillion; N71.18 trillion and N80.22 trillion ($510 billion), respectively.

The implication of this,he added was that the country had now overtaken South Arica to become the largest economy in the continent of Africa and 26th globally.

South Africa’s GDP for 2013 was $370.3 billion (N60.7 trillion)

In terms of per capital income, which measures the income per individual, Nigeria is now ranked 121st from 135 with an average GDP per capital income of $2,688.

On sectoral performance of the economy, the NBS boss said the results indicated that the structure of the Nigerian economy had changed significantly leading to a decline in the share of the agricultural sector and a rise in the share of services in nominal GDP.

The implication of this, according to him, is that the country now has a stronger diversification of the economy than earlier reported.

Ifeanyi Onuba & Oyetunji Abioye