July 23, 2025/CSL Research
- The rebasing exercise has significantly boosted nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures with notable differences across sectoral contributions. Nonetheless, real growth rate remains lacklustre.
- Higher nominal GDP expected to improve debt metrics but undermines efforts by the government to bolster the tax revenue to GDP ratio to 18% over the next three years.
- First quarter performance was driven by the non-oil sector, particularly services, which accounted for about 79% of the overall growth in GDP.
NBS completes rebasing exercise with significant adjustments. The NBS recently published the long-anticipated rebased GDP figures, updating the base year to 2019, replacing the 2010 base that had been in use since the previous rebasing exercise in 2014. The selection of 2019 as the new base year was guided by the relative macroeconomic stability during that period, making it a suitable benchmark for assessing current economic activity.
Moreover, this revision is expected to provide a more accurate and up-to-date representation of the structural and sectoral changes that have occurred over the last couple of years. Importantly, the new GDP estimates now include previously excluded sectors such as digital services, pension fund administration, and segments of the informal economy.
To enhance data quality and coverage, the NBS updated its data sources, drawing on inputs from the National Business Sample Census and Survey of Establishments, the National Agriculture Sample Census, the National Agricultural Sample Survey, and the 2019 and 2023 Living Standards Surveys. The Living Standards Surveys, in particular, were instrumental in estimating the size of the informal sector, whose contribution to GDP has now been revised upward to 42.5%, from the previous estimate of 41.4%.
Kindly click on the link below to download the full report.
CSL Macro Report – Q1 2025 GDP.pdf
