Latest report from the nation’s data merchant, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has shown that Nigeria’s telecommunications industry contracted by 2.62 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2017.
According to the agency, “The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report for the fourth quarter of 2017, this was 1.82 percentage points higher than the -4.44 per cent recorded in the preceding quarter”.
Whereas the report indicated that this was the second consecutive negative growth recorded in the subsector since the emergence of the economy from recession in the second quarter of last year, a telecom expert, Dr. Ken Igboanugo said even though the sector saw marginal growth within the period under review, by 0.34 per cent in 2017, it was however, 4.35 percentage points lower than the 4.69 per cent growth rate recorded in 2016.
Business Hilights recalls that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is composed of the telecommunications and information services, publishing, motion picture, sound recording and music production, and broadcasting subsectors.
Overall, the ICT sector’s growth rate declined by -0.55 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2017, a -17.98 per cent points decrease from the 17.43 per cent it recorded in the same quarter of 2016. However, it is 2.11 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in the preceding quarter.
However, the sector contributed 11.24 per cent in fourth quarter to the total real Gross Domestic Product, lower than in the same quarter of the previous year in which it contributed 11.62 per cent and higher than the preceding quarter in which it recorded 9.56 per cent.
According to Dr. Igboanugo, the drop in the growth sequence of the sector cannot be unconnected with the inclusion of several strategic ICT and telecoms equipment in the list of 41 barred from seamless access to forex.
It would be recalled that several ICT pressure groups including the Association of telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) had raised alarm on the inclusion of IT equipments, saying it will further frustrate the broadband penetration target of the nation as several materials to be used for the deployment of Optic Fibre Cables (OFC) and other metropolitan fibre infrastructure upon which the broadband will ride will be hard to access.
Igboanugo averred that “there are chances that even the drop in ICT investment will continue to the first quarter of 2018 as the items are still on the list and the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) is not making any move that tends to mean any removal any time soon”.
