ABUJA — Statistician General of the Federation, Dr Yemi Kale, has said the nation’s economy has continued to grow strongly while many of the countries we need to jump to be among the top economies in the world by Gross Domestic Product, GDP, by 2020 continued to grow slower than predicted.

According to him, “this means that the double digit growth required to be among the top 20 economies in the world by 2020 may not be necessary.

Kale, in the third quarter GDP report of the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, released last Tuesday, said at the time the vision was conceptualised, many of the countries we planned to surpass were performing much better than they are now and accordingly we needed to perform even better to jump them, hence the requirement in the vision for double digit growth.

He said since the global economic crisis hit the world, however, these countries have slowed down considerably, meaning Nigeria may not need to grow as fast as previously assumed at the time the vision was being conceptualised, especially if the trend continues.

He also said agriculture had continued to top the nation’s economic growth with a 43.64 per cent share in the third quarter of 2011. He noted that despite a little deep in GDP in the third quarter, “the structure of the economy, however, remained largely unchanged with agriculture (43.64 per cent), crude petroleum and natural gas (14.27 per cent) and wholesale and retail trade (18.29 per cent) accounting for 76.2 per cent of total GDP.”

Dr Kale stated that the “fact that these three sectors account for over 76 per cent of GDP may explain in part why GDP growth has remained non employment generating and poverty reducing in the last few years. Agriculture is mainly subsistence in nature and until it becomes more commercial, few job creating opportunities will emanate from that sector”.

He noted however, that the ministry of agriculture under the leadership the minister of agriculture had developed what he described as an impressive transformation agenda for the sector which once implemented will not only increase growth but generate significant employment opportunities directly and indirectly. Similarly, crude petroleum is largely capital intensive in nature with very few Nigerians in any case currently having the core competence and skills to operate in the sector.

He argued that “consequently, the sector under its current arrangement is not designed to create significant new jobs. This should change however, with the Petroleum Industry Bill. Wholesale and retail trade sector which constituted the third largest component of GDP is made up largely of imports resold in the country and involves largely the same individuals operating in the sector yearly with consequently relatively few opportunities for massive employment creation.

Until the sector becomes more dominant with massive influx of locally manufactured commodities requiring significantly more wholesalers and retailers it would continue to generate relatively few new jobs every year.

He maintained that “sectors that have significant employment generating opportunities like manufacturing, business enterprises especially micro, small and medium scale enterprises, solid minerals, building and construction and tourism and entertainment which are growing strongly, however, still constitute a small fraction of GDP.

Together these sectors contribute less than 10 per cent of GDP”. Until the structure of the economy changes where such sectors have a larger share of GDP, it may be difficult to have inclusive job creating and poverty reducing growth.”

Kale explained that “the above structural challenges coupled with a high level of inequality has resulted partly in strong growth that has not created jobs nor had any significant impact on poverty which stands at 54 per cent on average.