Nigeria now Africa’s biggest economy, overtakes S’Africa
President Goodluck Jonathan The Federal Government on Sunday finally released the result of the rebased Gross Domestic Product for the country, which showed that the Nigerian economy had overtaken South Africa’s as the biggest on the continent. The Statistician General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, who presented the outcome of the preliminary estimates of the GDP in Abuja, said that following the rebasing exercise, the country’s real GDP for 2011 and 2012 now stood at 5.09 per cent and 6.66 per cent, while the economy grew by 7.41 per cent in real terms last year. He stated that the numbers were still going through a final refinement and that by June this year; the final estimates of the nominal GDP would be released. Rebasing of the national account series, which includes the GDP, is the process of replacing an old base year with a new and more recent one. The base year provides the r...