IMF: Nigerian Economy To Contract By 3.4% In 2020

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday predicted that Nigerian economy will contract by 3.4 per cent this year as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hits commodity exporting countries.

The economy will however rebound by 2.4 per cent in 2021, the World Economic Outlook released at the ongoing virtual meeting of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC, showed.

In her address at the meeting, the IMF Chief Economist, Gita Gopinath, said the world has changed dramatically in the three months since its last update of the World Economic Outlook in January.

“A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost. As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes,” she said.