The Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 2.98% year-on-year in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024. This shows an increase of 0.67 percentage points from the 2.31% growth rate recorded in Q1 2023.
However, quarter-on-quarter, the economy slowed down from the 3.46% growth posted in Q4 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data released on Friday.
During the quarter, the services sector contributed 58.04% to the country’s GDP, as it grew by 4.32% during the quarter.
Also, the top five contributing activities turned out to be crop production, trade, telecommunications, crude petroleum and natural gas, and financial services. They contributed 62.25% to the country’s GDP.
Based on the Q1 2024 GDP report by the NBS, here are the five largest sectors in the Nigerian economy.
This sector comprises financial institutions and insurance. In Q1 2024, financial institutions accounted for 93.19% of the sector, while insurance made up 6.81%.
In Q1 2024, manufacturing contributed 9.98% to the real GDP, down from the 10.13% contribution by the sector in Q1 2023 but a 1.90 percentage-point increase from the 8.23% contribution by the sector in the preceding quarter (Q4 2023).
Trade was the third largest contributor to the country’s GDP in Q1 2024 with 15.70%, slightly lower than the 15.97% recorded in the previous year but higher than the 15.50% noted in the fourth quarter of 2023.
According to the NBS, the information and communication sector comprises telecommunications and information services, publishing, motion pictures, sound recording and music production, and broadcasting.
The agricultural sector comprises four sub-activities which are crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing.
Despite missing out on this list, the oil and gas sector contributed 6.38% to the GDP in Q1 2024. The increase in oil production during the quarter to an average of 1.57 million bpd from the preceding quarter’s 1.55 million bpd was a contributory factor to the sector’s 5.70% growth during the quarter.
