Nigeria : the largest economy in Africa

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On April 6, 2014 Nigeria pushed South Africa from its number one spot as the biggest economy in Africa,  and now the reigning  biggest economy in Africa is Nigeria which is also the country with the largest population .

The largest economy title simply means Nigeria has the largest Gross Domestic Product  in Africa, which in turn means as a country, Nigeria earns more income from its economic activities than any other country in Africa.

The recent figures for Nigeria’s year 2013 GDP show that the country made 509.9 billion US dollars, while the then biggest economy South Africa earned 370.3 billion US dollars.

The new GDP figures takes into account many other sources of incomes that were not taken into account in the past  in the calculations of Nigeria’s GDP. Such new sources of income include incomes from movie industry (Nigeria’s film industry is called Nollywood) and the booming mobile industry.

Apart from including the more sources of income in the country, Nigeria’s first spot as the biggest economy in Africa comes due to its appointment of new base year for the calculation of GDP. In the past Nigeria used year 1990 but the new GDP uses year 2010. In economic terms this is called rebase of GDP.

Bibliography: BBC,Economist,  Reuters.

Photo from Carolineinnigeria.blogspot.com