‘Balanced growth will expedite economic recovery, resilience’

The outbreak of COVlD-19 has brought to fore the need to build a resilient economy that can withstand global shocks; hence, high time Nigeria adopted a Balanced Growth Model (BGM), to expedite economic recovery and resilience.
 
BGM emphasizes the importance of simultaneously developing the oil sector value-chain (local oil refinery), and the non-oil sector (agricultural sector, manufacturing and education, among others), through strategic policies that focus on sustainable development, policy stability, economic stability and enhancing domestic purchasing power.
 
PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited (PwC Nigeria) in its Economic Alert: Q1’20 GDP report, titled, “Broad-based shocks to global economy weigh on the country’s growth,” says BGM will not only expedite an economic recovery from the predicted recession or contraction but also guarantee economic resilience afterwards to mitigate future global shocks.
   
Indeed, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that Nigeria’s economy recorded the slowest first quarter (Q1) growth since 2016 (post-recession). Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 1.87 per cent year-on-year from N16.57trillion in Q1 2019 to N16.89trillion in Q1 2020.