AKINWALE ABOLUWADE
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised Nigeria’s economic growth projection upward, forecasting a 3.4% growth rate for 2025 in its July 2025 edition of the World Economic Outlook (WEO).
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The IMF also raised its forecast for 2026 to 3.2%, up by 0.5 percentage points from the 2.7% projected in April.
The revised figures were part of a broader upward review of global and regional economic outlooks. The IMF now expects global economic growth to hit 3.0% in 2025 and 3.1% in 2026—an increase of 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively, compared to its April forecast.
For Sub-Saharan Africa, the Fund projects a growth rate of 4.0% in 2025 and 4.3% in 2026, up from the previous forecast of 3.8% and 4.2%, respectively.
“Growth is expected to be relatively stable in 2025 in Sub-Saharan Africa at 4.0 per cent, before picking up to 4.3 per cent in 2026,” the IMF noted in the report.
Reacting to the updated forecast, Tunde Abidoye, Head of Equity Research at FBNQuest Merchant Bank, said the 3.4% projection for Nigeria aligns with their internal estimates based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
“I believe the upward revision likely reflects improved oil production and the strong performance of services. That said, the range-bound single-digit growth rate forecast still portends cautious optimism, as the growth is still too modest to tackle the poverty problem,” Abidoye said.
