Nigeria falls from 1 to 31 in Africa

The recently released International Monetary Funds (IMF) World Economic Outlook for 2016, picked Cote d’Ivoire as the fastest growing economy in Africa for and Chad as the slowest.

According to the report, the fastest growing economies in Africa for 2016 are: Cote D’Ivoire (8.5%), Tanzania (6.9%), Senegal (6.6%), Djibouti (6.5%), Rwanda (6.3%), Kenya (6.0%), Mozambique (6.0%), Central African Republic (5.7%), Sierra Leone (5.3%), Uganda (5.3%), DR Congo (4.9%), Cameroon (4.9%), Ethiopia (4.5%), Ghana (4.5%) and Republic of Congo (4.4 %).

Nigeria with a projected GDP growth rate of 2.3%, is tied with the Gambia at 31. This is not surprising considering that Nigeria an ‘oil dependent economy’ was hit hard by the recent fall in crude oil prices.

In 2014 Nigeria was named the third fastest growing economy in the world by CNNMoney, with China and Qatar, taking the lead at 7.3 percent, 7.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth.