GDP: GROWTH OF DIGITAL SERVICES TO BOOST INVESTMENTS IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM, OTHERS – AGBA
Published by Borderless Media
The Federal Government has stated that the growth in Nigeria’s digital services, especially in areas of culture, creativity, hospitality and tourism will boost investments in the economy.
This was disclosed by Clem Agba, Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, at the 2021 African Statistics Day celebration with the theme: “Modernizing National Statistical Systems to support Socio-Cultural Development in Africa” in Abuja on Thursday, according to NAN.
The Minister said Nigeria’s creative industry and large youth population is ripe for growth adding that the FG has implemented policies including a National Policy for the socio-cultural development of the country through the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.
Mr Agba said, “Furthermore, with higher internet penetration across the country, the growth of digital services in the culture, creative, hospitality and tourism sector presents more opportunities for investments and growth.”
He highlighted the importance of credible statistical production processes and the usage for evidence-based policy formulation, citing that statistical information is an important tool to enable production processes that need to be demand-driven, apart from other regular statistical exercises.
He also called on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), to put in place all necessary measures that would ensure the creation of awareness on the importance of sustained production and usage of statistics at both the national and sub-national levels of government.
“To support this aspiration, the production of disaggregated statistics that would provide a comprehensive assessment of the magnitude and type of intervention programme becomes imperative.
“In this connection, there is the need to ensure the existence of a strong national statistical system that would be responsible for the collection, processing, compilation, analysis, dissemination and archiving of all social-cultural statistics in Nigeria,” he said.
Mr Simon Harry, the Statistician-General of the Federation stated that the progress of socio-cultural integration must be supported by high quality, timely and comparable social statistics
“These provide data for tracking various aspects of socio-cultural integration, including trade, infrastructure, labour mobility, capital investment, productive capacity and monetary and financial integration,” he said.
Report indicated that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 4.03% (year-on-year) in real terms in the third quarter of 2021, showing a sustained growth over the last four quarters since the recession witnessed in 2020, representing a slower growth compared to 5.01% recorded in the previous quarter.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, real GDP grew by 11.07% in Q3 2021 compared to Q2 2021, reflecting a higher economic activity than the preceding quarter.
The Information and Communications sector recorded a growth rate of 9.66% in real terms, year on year. From the rate recorded in the corresponding period of 2020, there was a decrease of 4.89% points. Quarter on Quarter, the sector exhibited a growth of -11.99% in real terms.
Of total real GDP, the sector contributed 14.20% in 2021 third quarter, higher than in the same quarter of the previous year in which it represented 13.47% and lower than the preceding quarter in which it represented 17.92%.
