The Director General of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in reacting to recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on the year-on-year real GDP growth of the Nigerian economy stood at 2.25 percent in the third quarter of 2022.
Segun Ajayi-Kadir, the Director General (DG)of MAN said the report has implication for the national economy added that the growth Slow Infrastructural Development & Reduction in Credit Intervention: Considering that the revenue generating capacity of the government is hampered by high unemployment, the limited funds will slow down the provision of infrastructure and credit facilities necessary to boost productivity of the manufacturing companies.
According to the press statement sent to The Ameh News (TAN) which was endorsed by DG, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said MAN’s position in the above mentioned report is that the government will resort into more borrowings and put the country in debt peonage.
He cited that in the line with the outcomes of surveys conducted by the Association since 2013, the total cumulative direct jobs created in the manufacturing sector was estimated at 1,679,984 as at the end of the first half of 2022.
Specifically, MAN DG pointed out that eight thousand, five hundred and forty-three (8543) jobs were created in the first half of 2022 as against 7602 jobs recorded in the corresponding half of 2021 and 8508 in the second half of 2021.
He further noted that the marginal increase in jobs created in the sector in the period under review was due to positive and continuous adjustments in manufacturing activities to accommodate the current economic hardship and sustain production by manufacturers.
Ajayi-Kadir Jobless Growth: The declining growth is an indication of lower production and lower employment. Therefore, the continuous downturn of the economy has further validated the urgent need to release an updated unemployment rate that corresponds with the current economic situation. The last published figure was in December 2020 at 33.33. Analysts had projected that the country’s rate of unemployment is well above the 40% mark.
Setback on the Fight against Poverty: he observed that in an economy with an average population growth rate of 2.6 percent, the recent real GDP growth of 2.25 percent implies that real GDP per capita growth has depreciated by 0.35 percent. This is a clear indication that more Nigerians have been thrown into the poverty trap and will also result in the country being downgraded from a middle-income to a low-income economy, he added.
Consequently, Ajayi-Kadir noted that manufacturing output growth in the first two quarters of 2022, though positive, oscillated from 5.8 percent recorded in the first quarter down to 3.0 percent in the second quarter of the year.
“The current performance of the sector suggests that it is not ‘Uhuru’ and emphasizes the need for a more proactive, broad and sector focused measures to addressing both the recent challenges thrown up by the Russian-Ukrainian war
