Nigeria’s Manufacturing Sector Grows 7.7 Percent – World Bank

Nigeria’s manufacturing sector grew from 6.5 percent to 7.7 percent in the 2012/2013 year, according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics. Likewise, the retail and sales sector achieved a 2 percent growth from 22 percent to 24 percent within the same period. The survey report was launched yesterday in Abuja by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the World Bank. Ms. Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank Country Director, praised Nigeria for its efforts at keeping statistical data on developments across the country. Dr. Yemi Kale, Statistician General of the Federation, noted that the NBS would begin to update data on the census of commercial, industrial, and agricultural establishments in the country. “NBS will, for the first time in over 20 years, conduct an update on the national census of commercial and industrial businesses and national agricultural sample census, which have been over due for decades. “We are exploring for the first time in our history completing these projects using these CAPI devices,” he said. “We have finished the work and we are doing our internal validation, which we should finish hopefully by the end of this week. Then we will have our external validation with our technical partners – the World Bank, IMF and those who are working with us. “We want this to be very transparent and we don’t care whether the number is positive or negative. So when we finish our internal and external validation, then we will make it public like we’ve always done,” he explained.