By Emeka Anaeto, Economy Editor

The impact of continued decline in the international oil price has dragged down growth indices in the Nigerian economy in the second quarter, 2015. According to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, released yesterday, Gross Domestic Product, GDP, expanded 2.35 percent on an annual basis, compared with 3.96 percent a quarter earlier. Quarter on quarter, real GDP increased by 2.57 percent.

During the quarter, aggregate GDP stood at N22,859,153.01 million (in nominal terms) at basic prices. Compared to the Second Quarter 2014 value of N21,734,829.86 million, nominal GDP was 5.17 percent higher. Nominal GDP growth was also higher relative to growth recorded in first quarter 2015 by 0.85 percentage points.

Sector by sector

Further highlight of the report shows that manufacturing contracted by 3.8 percent during the quarter, compared with growth of 14 percent a year ago. At 2.35 percent, the GDP is showing less than half the projected economic performance put at about five percent in the 2015 budget, which was also revised down from above six percent estimate in the face of depressing oil price.

The oil industry contracted 6.8 percent, the report stated. During the period under review, oil production stood at 2.05 million barrels per day (mbpd), 5.9 percent lower from production in Q1 of 2015. Oil production was also lower relative to the corresponding quarter in 2014 by 7.3 percent, when output was recorded at 2.21million barrel per day. Growth in the non-oil sector was largely driven by the activities of trade, crop production, construction and telecommunications.

Non-oil

The non-oil sector grew by 3.46 percent in real terms in Q2 of 2015. This was 2.13 percent points lower from Q1 2015 and 3.26 percent points lower from the corresponding quarter in 2014. In real terms, non-oil sector contributed 90.20 percent to the nation’s GDP, marginally higher from shares recorded in Q1 2015 (89.55 percent) and Q2 2014 (89.24 percent).

As a result, real growth of the oil sector slowed by 6.79 percent (year-on-year) in Q2 2015. This represents a decline relative to growth recorded in Q2 2014 (5.14 percent). Growth was, however, relatively better by 1.35 percentage points relative to growth in Q1 of 2015. Quarter-on-quarter, growth also slowed by 3.82 percent.

Oil sector

As a share of the economy, the oil sector represented 9.80 percent of total real GDP, down from the shares recorded in the corresponding period of 2014 and the share in Q1 2015 by 0.96 percentage points and 0.65 percentage points, respectively. Vanguard had reported earlier this week that Nigeria’s economy may be heading for a serious tightening as oil price crash worsened since last weekend up till early this week.

Further negative development from the international market shocks was recorded in the first two trading days at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, with key indicators sustaining daily plunges.