Nigeria post highest quarterly GDP growth in Q4 since recession

A dairy worker helps to process youghurt milk at the L & Z milk processing factory in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano January 19, 2016. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s economic growth rose to an annual rate of 2.55% in the three months to the end of December, its highest quarterly growth since a 2016 recession, the statistics office said on Monday.

The economy, Africa’s largest, expanded by 0.27% in the previous quarter and 0.17% in the same period a year earlier. The country has struggled to shake off the effects of a 2016 recession that ended the following year.

Nigeria has been grappling with low growth since then.

Growth rose to an annual rate of 2.28% in the third quarter after production of its main export, crude oil, rose to a more than three-year high.

Crude production in the fourth quarter stood at 2 million barrels per day, up from 1.91 million in the same period of the previous year, the statistics office said. – Reuters Africa