The International Monetary Fund announced last week that it forecasts Nigeria’s real income per capita will drop for the next five years until 2023. For Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country, this is bad news. It means Nigeria would suffer eight straight years of diminishing Gross National Income per capita.
The past three years have seen Nigeria going into recession, and exiting, with the resultant effects on its income per capita. Although it’s going into economic recession, and exiting it, coincided with the fall and rise in global oil prices respectively, the same mistakes oil-dependent Nigeria made are still there.
According to analysts, its inability to diversify its economy from oil is the biggest problem, despite the return of record oil revenues and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. The decline in income per capita will also spread to other ECOWAS countries since Nigeria alone accounts for 70 percent of export for the other West African countries.
The solution to this problem would be for Nigeria to first diversify its economy, after which it has to spur industrialization, by improving electricity, adult literacy, and making sure investments are at least 25 percent of its GDP.
Below is the Ventures Africa Weekly Economic Index, for the week ending 25th of May 2018. This economic index gives you a glimpse into other recent activities in Nigeria’s economy as well as changes and prices that could affect the economy.
Nigerian Stock Exchange
Data released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), as of 25th of May 2018, showed that the All-Share Index depreciated by 2.84 percent from the previous week ending 18th May 2018. Market capitalization at the close of trading during the week under review was N14.244 trillion which was a 2.84 percent decrease from N14.660 trillion recorded the previous week. The All-Share Index for the week under review closed at 39,323.62.
Top five price gainers and decliners in the week under review:
Top five price gainers
Ikeja Hotel Plc.
MRS Oil Nigeria Plc.
Law Union and Rocks INS Plc.
Niger Insurance Co. Plc.
Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc.
Top five price decliner
Eterna Plc.
Japaul Oil and Maritime Services Plc.
Dangote Flour Mills
Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc.
AIICO Insurance Plc.
How did the Naira fare?
In the week under review, the Naira retained its value against the Dollar in the parallel market as at Friday, 25th of May 2018. It was sold at N361/$, the same value that was recorded on the 18th of May 2018.
How did the price of oil fare?
After global oil prices rose last week to a four-year high of $80 per barrel, they ended the week at below $77 per barrel. This was due to Saudi Arabia and Russia announcing that they are discussing increasing oil outputs after an OPEC concessional supply cut led to a record increase in oil prices.
