Nigeria’s economy is resilient and set to grow in the first half of 2026 despite the\u00a0Iran war, the World Bank said on Tuesday, \u200badding that rising fuel costs and persistently high inflation risk squeezing incomes and \u200cslowing poverty reduction.<\/p>\n
Business activity remains in expansion territory, with the U.S.\/Israel-Iran conflict so far lifting prices but leaving output largely intact, World Bank Nigeria lead economist Fiseha Haile said during a presentation \u200bin the capital, Abuja.<\/p>\n
“Overall business activity has been expanding over the past few \u200bmonths, suggesting the impact on growth has been relatively contained. But \u2060the shock is still being felt through higher inflation,” Haile said.<\/p>\n
President Bola Tinubu, now \u200bin his third year in office, has rolled out Nigeria’s most ambitious economic overhaul in \u200bdecades by ending costly fuel and energy subsidies, devaluing the currency and changing the tax system to stabilise an economy battered by high inflation, currency weakness and external shocks.<\/p>\n
Inflation eased sharply to 15.06% \u200bin February from around 33% in December 2024, but remains high compared with regional \u200bpeers and has come under renewed pressure since the Middle East conflict began, Haile said.<\/p>\n
Fuel prices \u200chave risen \u2060more than 50% during the Iran war, feeding into transport, food and production costs. Nigeria should consider lifting curbs on fuel imports to help ease inflation, he said.<\/p>\n
“Inflation is still elevated and under increasing pressure, and that poses risks to incomes and poverty \u200breduction,” Haile said.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s external \u200bbuffers have improved \u2060as foreign exchange reserves rise and volatility eases, but tighter global financing conditions still threaten inflows, borrowing costs and remittances.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s fiscal \u200bdeficit widened slightly to 3.1% of GDP in 2025, but remains \u200blower than \u2060in pre-reform years, Haile said, adding that the debt\u2011to\u2011GDP ratio fell for the first time in a decade, helped by stronger fiscal performance and exchange rate valuation gains.<\/p>\n
The World Bank \u2060forecasts \u200beconomic growth of about 4.2% for 2026 and urged \u200bauthorities to save windfalls from higher oil prices, keep monetary policy tight, and avoid blanket subsidies to rein \u200bin inflation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s economy is resilient and set to grow in the first half of 2026 despite the\u00a0Iran war, the World Bank said on Tuesday, \u200badding that rising fuel costs and persistently high inflation risk squeezing incomes and \u200cslowing poverty reduction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":16,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,2362,27],"tags":[175,1184],"class_list":["post-20435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-featured","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-world-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20437,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20435\/revisions\/20437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}