IMF projects 23% inflation drop for Nigeria in 2025, 18% by 2026

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected a 23 per cent inflation rate for Nigeria in 2025 and a further drop to 18 per cent in 2026. In its Global Economic Outlook released yesterday at the ongoing IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington D.C, Division Chief, IMF Research Department, Daniel Leigh, said Nigeria is moving in the right direction with economic reforms including exchange rate reforms which contributed to a surge in inflation rate in March to 33.2 per cent. “We see inflation declining to 23 per cent next year and then 18 per cent in 2026. Growth in Nigeria is steady but rising this year, from 2.9 per cent last year to 3.3 per cent this year. We have seen an expansion from the recovery in the oil sector, with a better security situation and improved agriculture, benefiting from better weather conditions and the introduction of dry-season farming. So, there’s a broad-based increase also in the financial sector, in the IT sector. Inflation, yes, has increased. Part of this reflects the reforms, the exchange rate and its pass-through into other goods from imports to other goods. So, this explains also why we revised our inflation projection for this year to 26 per cent. But with the tight monetary policies and that interest rate increase, significant interest rate increases during February and March,” Leigh said.