Business
New data indicates that Nigeria to overtake South Africa sooner as Africa’s biggest economy
South Africa is about to be seriously upstaged on the African continent. For several years economists have been waiting for a promised revision to Nigeria’s economic data that is expected to lift the economy to an entirely new level. The moment of truth is about to arrive.
Citi’s Africa economist, David Cowan, said last week that new figures due in December could boost Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 50 percent.
Based on the current data, Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy after South Africa, having overtaken Egypt in 2011. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) puts Nigeria’s GDP this year at US$292 billion and South Africa’s at US$354 billion.
Nigeria’s economy is growing much faster than South Africa’s – more than 6 percent this year compared with 2 percent. The gap between the two countries is closing much faster than initially estimated.
Economists had forecast earlier Nigeria would overtake South Africa between 2020 and 2025, however, new improved version of the data will see Nigeria leap ahead much earlier.
Earlier this year, Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper said the new figure would “catapult Nigeria’s economy to US$400 billion”, moving it up the ranks of the middle-income countries.
The newspaper noted that, when Ghana’s GDP was updated in 2010, the size of its economy was found to be 60 percent bigger than previously recorded – US$31 billion, compared with US$18 billion.
