If oil prices hold, Nigeria will be out of recession in 2018—-Yale

Statistician General Dr. Yemi Kale has said that Nigeria will be fully out of recession by 2018. He gave the indication in an interview with Economic Confidential. In the discussion he said “I will say that most of the indicators suggest that we are coming out of recession. We have not come out of it yet.
“As if the worst has already happened and it’s a slow process of recovery. Now there is what we call technical recovery as different from the recovery Nigerians would prefer.

“When you tell somebody the economy is coming out of recession, they would ask what do you mean. After all prices are still high. Coming out of recession means positive growth. And your positive growth can be plus zero point one (+0.1). That does not mean everything is fine. It technically means you are no longer in negative again. The fact that you are no longer in negative does not translate to be buoyant.

“There is going to be a gradual process of recovery. Definitely things are improving. At least all the indicators are suggesting things are getting better. People always make this mistake when we say inflation is slowing down. Slowing down of Inflation does not mean prices are coming down.

“Inflation by definition is always a rise in price. All we are saying is that increase is not as much as before. Before it went up by 100 per cent, but this time it went up by 50 per cent. Having double digit inflation figure is still huge and a problem. The fact that it went down from 19 per cent to 18 per cent and now to 17 per cent shows improvement.

“But I can tell you 17 per cent is not good but a huge problem. If the trend continues, by the end of the year things should have normalised and by 2018 Nigerians would now see the benefit of the recovery. If all prices do not collapse including Niger Delta crisis, by 2018 we would have recovered.