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NBS to release rebased GDP in three weeks

By on January 27, 2014

The National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday said that barring unforeseen contingencies, the rebased Gross Domestic Product report would be released within the next three weeks.

The Statistician-General/Chief Executive, NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale, said this in Abuja while answering questions from journalists on the sidelines of a workshop on the review of the organisation’s strategic implementation plan for 2012-2014.

The country’s GDP is currently being updated to capture changes that would have occurred within the economy in terms of size and structure since the year 1990, which is the base year for the computation of the National Accounts Estimates.

Currently, Nigeria’s GDP, which is the computation of the total value of all final goods and services produced in the economy, is measured from 33 activities.

But the rebasing of the GDP, which will use 2010 as its new base year, is expected to capture about 42 activities.

This, according to the NBS boss, will provide a more realistic estimate of the Nigerian economy.

Kale said the NBS had completed its work on the exercise, noting that the figures were currently being validated internally and externally.

The internal validation process, according to him, is being carried out by the bureau, while the external validation will be done by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He said, “We have finished the work and we are doing our internal validation, which we should finish hopefully by the end of this week.

“Then, we will have the external validation with our technical partners, the World Bank, IMF and those who are working with us.

“We want this to be very transparent and we don’t care whether the number is positive or negative. So, when we finish our internal and external validation, we will make it public as we always do

“We are hoping to finish the internal validation this week and the external validation next week. Now, if during the internal and external validation, we notice an error, we have to go back and fix it and that will delay us again. If that is the case, in about three weeks, it will be ready.”

Kale also said that the bureau would from April this year begin the use of the Computer-assisted Personnel Interview application device for capturing of data.

This, according to him, is part of the measures aimed at increasing accuracy, reliability and timeliness of data produced by the organisation.

 

 

[Punch]