Nigeria
is to “rebase” its gross domestic product (GDP) on Sunday 6 April,
which should push it above South Africa as the continent’s biggest
economy.
What is debasing?
The United Nations defines rebasing as the “process of replacing present
price structure [base year] to compile volume measures of GDP with a
new or more recent base year”. Basically, it’s a need to update a
country’s national statistics.
Economies are dynamic things; they grow, they shrink, they add new
sectors and technologies and people’s behaviours change. One of the uses
to which GDP data is put is to track how the economy grows over time.
So, as GDP numbers are only relevant when compared to other GDP numbers,
the year that serves as the base for their comparison needs to change
as well to reflect the changes in the economy. There are basically two
ways to measure gross domestic product (GDP), the sum of a country’s
goods and services.
Firstly, nominal GDP. This is the sum value of all produced goods and
services at current prices. This measure does have its uses. But real
GDP is more widely used and is slightly different. It’s the sum value of
all produced goods and services at constant prices and is useful for
showing how the economy changes in size and – with some further
manipulation – how average living standards change over time. The
constant prices are the ones from the base year – whichever that is.
Why is it necessary?
Rebasing is necessary simply because economies change over time.
Different goods are produced and new technology is introduced, so
rebasing means that the statistics give the most up-to-date picture of
an economy as possible. Most country do it at least every three years or
so. But Nigeria’s old GDP base year is 1990.
Back then, the country had one telecoms operator with perhaps 300,000
phone lines. Now it has a whole mobile phone industry with tens of
millions of subscribers. So without rebasing the statistics from the
mobile phone sector, it would remain somewhat under-represented.
Likewise, 24 years ago there was only one airline. Now there are a whole
plethora, the information of which needs to be captured better in the
national figures.
Some analysts say that switching the base year to 2010 will boost the country’s GDP by as much as 65% – on paper.
Why hasn’t Nigeria done this for 24 years?
A good question. Often in the recent past, in some of the world’s
developing economies it has been seen as a non-urgent exercise and
frankly there haven’t been the resources to do it. That might have been
true when the economies of the world were less connected to each other
through trade, but now rebasing should be a semi-regular occurrence in
most national statistic departments.
Also, Nigeria has a new Statistician General, Yemi Kale, who seems to be
very keen on beefing up the National Bureau of Statistics.
Will it change anything?
To the man in the street, no. It will make no difference at all. But
it’ll be of some interest to economists. Certain ratios will change, for
example the debt to GDP ratio will fall. And on a GDP basis, Nigeria
will become the largest economy in Africa, knocking South Africa into
second place. Nigeria’s rebased GDP is thought to be around $432bn
(£260bn) compared with South Africa’s GDP of $370.3bn at the end of
2013.
But some economists would point out that Nigeria’s economic output is
underperforming because at 170 million people, its population is three
times larger than South Africa’s. And on a per-capita basis, South
Africa’s GDP numbers are three times larger than Nigeria’s. So, while
Nigeria can claim the crown of Africa’s largest economy, there are
certain caveats.
Will Nigeria wait another 24 years before doing this again?
It is hoped not. It is hoped that this will now become a more regular
thing. And not just for Nigeria – Kenya and Zambia are looking to rebase
as well. Also, donors are keen for more African countries to do this
regularly because it enables them to make better decisions when it comes
to aid. But generally speaking, it’s a desirable thing for every
economy to do, as regularly as is feasible.
For example, the United States has a system whereby GDP is constantly
rebased, which gives the most up-to-date picture as possible. Given the
resources most national statistics department have this is just not
possible, but at least every four years would be the target.
Nigerian President
Goodluck Jonathan has urged Nigerians to protect the image of the country by
shunning uncomplimentary statements and actions.
Inaugurating the
64-page e-passport on Wednesday in Abuja, Jonathan said that the pages of the travelling
document had to be increased from 32 to 64 pages to cater for frequent
travellers who change their passport almost every other month because of
limited pages for visa.
