The Partner and Chief Economist, KPMG in Nigeria, Yemi Kale, has said that Nigeria’s economic growth is dependent on the operations of the Dangote refinery and key global macroeconomic issues in the first half of 2023.
He said this on Wednesday at the CEO Forum hosted by BusinessDay newspaper at Eko Hotel, Lagos.
“We expect the economy to be at 2-3 percent but depends on the impact of the Dangote refinery utilization,” Kale said.
He also noted that global inflation was going down, meaning that people were responding to the tightened monetary policy, indicating a response to the global recession and economies returning to normalcy.
“Most people assume that the worst is over. The global economy moving from 6 per cent to 3 per cent means the economy is moving to normalcy doesn’t mean it is going down,” he said.
He also noted that he expected the hike in interest rate to be in early 2024 or the late quarter of 2023 given normalcy returning.
Kale noted that over the years, Nigeria’s growth had been stunted by over-reliance on oil, years of political instability, the government taking the wrong approaches or policies and the external shocks, which were symptoms of the general issue going on in the Nigerian economy.
“To diversify the Nigerian economy, there is a need to make the non-oil sector more productive,” Kale said.
