Nigeria’s manufacturing sector accounted for 8.05 per cent of real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025, down from 8.24 per cent recorded in 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) GDP Report Q4 2025.
 
This decline in contribution comes despite a slight improvement in annual real growth, underscoring the sector’s weak structural momentum within the broader economy.
  
The sector comprises 13 sub-sectors, including oil refining, cement, food, beverages and tobacco, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, basic metals, motor vehicles and other manufacturing segments.
 
Data from the report show that real GDP growth in manufacturing stood at 1.13 per cent year-on-year in Q4 2025, lower than the same quarter of 2024 and the preceding quarter. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, growth stood at 9.01 per cent.
  
For the full year, real growth in the sector was 1.41 per cent in 2025, marginally higher than the 1.20 per cent recorded in 2024.

However, the modest growth was insufficient to prevent a drop in its overall share of the economy.
 
According to the report, manufacturing contributed just 7.40 per cent to GDP in Q4 2025, down from 7.62 per cent in Q4 2024 and below Q3 2025.
 
This indicates that even as the broader economy expanded by 4.07 per cent in real terms in Q4 2025, manufacturing lagged behind other growth drivers.

In nominal terms, manufacturing grew by 12.96 per cent in 2025, up from 10.84 per cent in 2024. In Q4 2025, nominal growth stood at 5.80 per cent year-on-year, significantly lower than the 13.14 per cent recorded in Q4 2024.
  
Despite stronger nominal expansion, the sector’s share of nominal GDP also declined annually. Manufacturing contributed 8.46 per cent to nominal GDP in 2025, compared to 8.85 per cent in 2024.

In Q4 2025, its nominal contribution was 8.34 per cent, lower than the 9.27 per cent recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2024, but slightly higher than the 8.06 per cent posted in Q3 2025.
  
The divergence between nominal and real performance suggests that price adjustments have supported value growth more than actual increases in production volumes.
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