A recently released CBN report indicates a weakened business outlook of -66.2 points for the month of May. The agriculture and service sectors are the worst hit, recording a decline in activity of -37.7 index point for May. According to the survey the pessimism is maintained in June as businesses expect an economic outlook of -4.22. The employment outlook is pessimistic across the construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and service sectors as employment is expected to decline by -18.5, -10.9, and -4.1 points respectively. The weakened outlook towards the macroeconomy results from limited economic activity with businesses that are import and/or export-oriented and those that are neither import nor export-oriented expressing pessimism. Considering that the factors that constrain business activity including power supply insufficiencies, access to finance and credit, high-interest rate, and insufficient demand are still present, the business outlook in the coming months is expected to continue to weaken considerably.
June 21, 2020
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 23)
Related
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 6)
The
nations foreign reserves have been on a steady rise. In the review week,
reserves increased by $415.2 million from $28.3 billion on February 3, 2017 to
$28.8 billion on February 10, 2017. The increase is likely the
reflection of a sustained crude oil revenue complemented by moderating global
crude oil price and increasing domestic production. This should help strengthen
the ability of the CBN to foster forex liquidity, and thus help maintain
stability in the domestic forex market. If sustained, it should also help
improve the value of the naira overtime. Hence, the government should implement
proactive and effective policy strategies to, not only, sustain improvements in
oil revenue but also boost non-oil revenue.