Macroeconomic Report & Economic Updates

The Nigeria Stock Exchange market advanced further as equity indices pitched higher in the review week. Benchmark indices, All-share Index and Market Capitalization rose by 1.5 percent to settle at remarkable points, 37,425 and N12.90 trillion respectively an exceptional first-time record in more than two years. The uptrend has been sustained by stronger demand for investment securities due to outstanding H1 performance reports submitted by some listed companies during the week10.

Available data shows that headline inflation reduced in most countries in the region in May 2017 relative to preceding months. Notably, headline inflation decreased in Nigeria (16.25 percent), Ghana (12.26 percent), Tanzania (6.1 percent), Senegal (1.8 percent), Namibia (6.3 percent) and Rwanda (11.7 percent), while it grew in South Africa (5.4 percent), Kenya (11.7 percent), Ethiopia (8.7 percent) and Uganda (7.2 percent). Cote dIvoire (-0.4 percent) recorded consumer price deflation. The decrease in consumer price in Nigeria, Tanzania and Ghana can be attributed to decreases in both food and non-food components of inflation. Regionally, all countries in Southern Africa recorded single digits inflation, however consumer price marginally increased in South Africa, for the first time in 2017 owing to spike in food prices6, and Botswana (both by 0.1 percent).

Recent media highlights suggest that there is a prospective decrease in Nigerias budgetary benchmark crude oil production. Precisely, the 1.8 million barrels per day proposed at the Joint OPEC and Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting, is 18.2 percent lower than the budgetary production benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day. This followed OPECs recent review to include Nigeria in the ongoing production cut agreement amid concerns of global oil market oversupply, given the constant production increase from Nigeria over the last few months.

Global oil price edged upwards in the review week. International crude benchmark, Brent, rose week-on-week by 3.1 percent to $50 per barrel as at July 21, 20173 a level it had not attained since June. The remarkable gains followed demand-side progress earlier statistics from China showed increase in crude imports, indicating prospects of higher demand. This was also complimented by the huge drop in US domestic crude production (Crude reserves fell by 4.7 million barrels). If the trend is sustained, Nigeria could record further rise in its Gross Federally Collected Revenue. Nevertheless, there remains a need for Nigeria to overcome the challenge of harnessing its oil and gas resources by making strategic policy choices andensuring coordination in policy implementation to minimize macroeconomic distortions.