By Lawrence Olaoye
The federal government has said that the nation’s economy will receive a boom with several jobs created when the capital budget approved in the 2018 Appropriation bill is released.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, gave the assurance while briefing newsmen after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday.
Udoma, who disclosed that the Council was pleased with the latest National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) result which put it at 1.95 percent also assured that the 3.5 percent target for 2018 was achievable.
He said “I presented the latest NBS GDP result which was released on Monday. It showed a GDP growth rate of 1.95 percent with both the oil as well as the non oil sectors continuing to grow. Council was most encouraged by this result particularly because the first quarter is usually the weskest quarter.
With this first quarter of 1.95 percent we are on track to achieve the 3.5 percent GDP growth rate which is our target for this year particularly we believe that once the infrastructure spending in the 2018 starts to kick in, the whole economy will receive a further boost as more jobs will be created, consumer spending will increase thereby improving the performance of the servicing sector.
And apart from the GDP numbers, Council is also very happy to see the positive trend in all other major economic indices including inflation which has been trending down and capital importation which has been going up as well as our Foreign Currency Reserve which has been going up.”
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