The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data has revealed that the manufacturing sector contributed around N32 trillion in the last five years. Showing that the contribution of the manufacturing sector to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has stunted in the last five years.
Nigeria’s GDP between 2018 and 2022 stands at 358.32 trillion. The manufacturing sector contributed a meagre N32 trillion. This represents just 9% of the country’s economy, according to NBS.
Mr Ide John Udeagbala, the President of the Nigeria Association of Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture noted that a 9% average contribution to national output shows the country is falling below its industrialization goals.
Although Nigeria has an advanced services sector, an average manufacturing contribution of 9% to GDP shows that we are falling less of our industrialization goals.
More analysis from the NBS data showed that in 2018, Nigeria’s GDP was N69.7 trillion of which the manufacturing sector contributed N6.4 trillion. For 2019, the country’s GDP was N71.38 trillion and the manufacturing industry contributed N6.47 trillion.
For 2020, 2021 and 2022, the sector contributed 8.99%, 8.98% and 8.92% respectively to the country’s economy.
Specialist in the sector have decried the high energy cost, forex scarcity, inflation in the price of raw materials and inputs, and high lending interest rate among others as responsible for the industry’s current malaise.
According to Mr. Ide,
- “I think that a situation where less than one-in-ten products produced in the Nigerian economy is the outcome of an industrialized process does not bode well for our economic growth and development objectives. This is because industrialization is well-established as a pathway to development.
The Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadir, also commented on the status thus “Conceptually, manufacturing is unarguably the backbone of national economic development.” “It is countries that can transform their raw materials into a wide range of furnished goods and add prosperous value. Beyond the role of the sector in the domestic economy, manufactured exports expand the scope of trade, commerce and foreign exchange inflow.”