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Nigeria may slip into another recession by Q3 – Budget Office

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The Director-General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, said on Thursday Nigeria may slip into another recession in the third quarter due to ravaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and depressed oil prices.

The continent’s biggest oil producer is confronting its worst economic crisis in 40 years following an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the year, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which crippled demand for its main export and biggest foreign exchange earner.

Akabueze told journalists it was projected that expansion in the third quarter would be negative and the country could fall into another recession.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: FG warns Nigeria may slide into another recession

If that happens, it will mark the second quarter of consecutive negative growth after the economy tightened by -6.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to data issued by the National Bureau for Statistics on Monday.

The International Monetary Fund also predicted that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would contract by 5.4 percent this year.

But the government has put its own forecast at 8.9 percent.

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