Oil Refining, The Way Out For Manufacturing GDP Growth?

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The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the Q4 and FY-17 GDP report earlier, estimating Q4-17 and FY-17 GDP growth at 1.9% y/y and 0.83% y/y, (vs. 1.4% y/y and -1.6% y/y in Q3-17 and FY-16 respectively). Oil GDP expanded 8.4% y/y and 4.8% y/y in Q4-17 and FY-17, while the non-oil GDP rebounded, printing a 1.5% y/y and 0.5% y/y growth in Q4-17 and FY-16 respectively.

key sectors such as; Construction (+4.1%), Manufacturing (+0.1%), and Services (+0.1%) rebounded from prior quarter’s declines, thanks to increased government spending in Q4-17 which buoyed growth in the sectors. However, worthy of note is the minimal growth recorded by the Manufacturing sector, which contracted by
0.2% in FY-17, despite indications of expansion by CBN’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for 9 consecutive months in 2017.

The surprising slowdown in the manufacturing sector can be attributed to declines recorded by Cement (-2.2%) and Oil Refining (-27.7%) subsectors in FY-17. The Oil refining sub-sector alone recorded a massive 46.2% decline in Q4-17 compared to 45.4% decline in Q3-17. Therefore, to restore meaningful growth to the manufacturing sector in 2018, Nigeria must fast-track its planned refurbishing/upgrade of local refineries while creating enabling environment for private sector
participation.