From Vincent Egunyanga
Nigeria’s GDP climbs 3.13% in Q1 2025, bolstered by rebased data, key sectors
Offor Callistus July 21, 2025
GDP
Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded by 3.13% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, according to a Monday report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
This growth reflects a notable improvement over the 2.27% recorded in Q1 2024, propelled primarily by the services and industry sectors.
The NBS report stated, “In real terms, GDP grew by 3.13% year-on-year in Q1 2025, outpacing the 2.27% growth seen in the same quarter of 2024.”
Following a rebasing exercise, Nigeria’s nominal GDP for 2019 was set at N205.09 trillion, marking a 41.1% increase from the 2014 rebasing, though lower than the 59.5% rise in the prior exercise, as explained by Statistician General Adeyemi Adeniran.
Adeniran outlined the rebased figures: “With 2019 as the new base year, nominal GDP reached N213.64 trillion in 2020, N243.30 trillion in 2021, N274.23 trillion in 2022, N314.02 trillion in 2023, and N372.82 trillion ($243 billion) in 2024.” In real terms, GDP growth was -6.96% in 2020, 0.95% in 2021, 4.32% in 2022, 3.04% in 2023, and 3.38% in 2024.
The rebasing, covering 2019 to 2023 with 2019 as the base year, highlighted key sectors driving the economy.
“The top five contributors in 2019 were crop production (17.58%), trade (17.42%), real estate (10.78%), telecommunications (6.78%), and crude petroleum and natural gas (5.85%),” Adeniran noted.
He added that real estate’s rise to third place, surpassing oil and gas, stemmed from better tracking of the informal real estate sector.
In 2019, the services sector led with a 53.09% GDP contribution, up from 52.60% in earlier estimates, followed by agriculture at 25.83% and industry at 21.08%.
The informal sector’s share grew significantly to N86.85 trillion (42.5%) in 2019, compared to N39.00 trillion in 2015, reflecting its expanded role in the economy.