Coronavirus: Nigeria May Experience A Recession Soon - Minister

As the country and the world continues to experience a surge in the spread of the novel coronavirus, global economies fear what would come if the virus extends any further, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that the world economy has slipped into a recession, as this virus outbreak has shutdown operations of thousands of jobs that stimulate the growth of economies around the world.

Nigeria is one such country, and the Minister of Health, Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Nigerian economy might dip further if the the pandemic carries on for another six months.

Mrs. Zainab stated,  “We are hopeful that this pandemic will be limited in time. If it is an average of three months, we should be able to close the year with positive growth.

“But if it goes longer than that – six months, one year – we will go into recession.”

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On the impact of the effect of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, described the events that have unraveled, stating that not less than 80 countries have sought the help of the monetary organisation.

“We have reassessed the prospect for growth for 2020 and 2021. It is now clear that we have entered a recession – as bad as or worse than in 2009," she stated.

“We do project recovery in 2021 – in fact, there may be a sizeable rebound, but only if we succeed with containing the virus – everywhere – and prevent liquidity problems from becoming a solvency issue.

“A key concern about a long-lasting impact of the sudden stop of the world economy is the risk of a wave of bankruptcies and layoffs that not only can undermine the recovery but can erode the fabric of our societies.

“We have seen an extraordinary spike in requests for the IMF emergency financing – some 80 countries have placed requests and more are likely to come. Normally, we never have more than a handful of requests at the same time.”