The Washington-based World Bank has projected Nigeria’s economy to grow 3.3 per cent this year.

The leading development bank disclosed this in its recent Global Economic Prospect (GEP).

Accordingly, the latest growth projection for Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, is about 0.4 percentage points higher than the 2.9 per cent it is expected to have closed last year.

Meanwhile, the projection is slightly behind that of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which is to expand by 3.8 per cent, but far modestly above the estimated global average of 2.3 per cent.

The latest projections for 2024 and 2025 are way above June forecasts, which were three and 3.1 per cent, respectively, re-validating the global bank’s rising confidence in the prospect of the economy since downstream oil and foreign exchange reforms that started the mid-last year.

According to the report, Nigeria’s inflation will “gradually ease as the effects of last year’s exchange rate reforms and removal of fuel subsidies fade”, with the structural reforms expected to boost fiscal revenue.

“Growth in SSA is expected to accelerate to 3.8 per cent in 2024 and further to 4.1 per cent in 2025 as inflationary pressures fade and financial conditions ease.

“The projections for regional growth in 2024 and 2025 have changed little from June forecasts, but these aggregates mask a mix of upgrades and downgrades at the country level.

“While growth in the largest economies in SSA is expected to lag the rest of the region, non-resource-rich economies are forecasted to maintain a growth rate above the regional average.

“Excluding the three largest SSA economies, growth in the region is expected to accelerate from 3.9 per cent in 2023 to 5 per cent in 2024 and a further 5.3 per cent in 2025,” the report said about Africa.

WORLD WIDE GIST reports that on the first day of this year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the N28.7 trillion 2024 appropriation bill into law with a 3.76 per cent projected economic growth rate.

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