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Real estate, ICT among fastest growing sectors in Nigeria: UN official

Xinhua, July 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Head of Poverty and Trade Department with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said Thursday that real estate and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are among the fastest growing sectors in Nigeria.

The two sectors in conjunction with the financial services sector have the capacity to drive economic growth, if well harnessed, Patrick Osakwe, told reporters in Lagos.

He spoke against the backdrop of a recent annual report on African development by the UNCTAD.

"In Nigeria, the fastest growing sectors would be real estate, as well as Information and Communications technology," he said, noting that these sectors are suffering a level of deficit that needs to be addressed, to maximize their potential.

According to the UNCTAD development report, Africa's fastest growing services sub-sectors are transport, storage and communications, which grew at 5.8 percent, while others like hotel, retail and wholesale trade grew at 5.0 percent.

The services sector accounted for 50 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of most African countries.

The report underlined the services sector as an untapped sector, which has contributed immensely to the GDP of most African countries in the last five years.

It said that access to reliable sources of energy is low in Africa, with about 74 per cent of the population without access to electricity.

It also said that the cost of closing the energy gap would cost up to 93 billion U.S. dollars annually by 2030, which has caused a setback in the growing sectors like real estate and ICT.

Real estate experts asserted that the population of people living in the suburbs of major cities like Lagos and Abuja would increase by 50 percent by 2025.

They say the reasons for the population increase was huge rural-urban migration and the poor living conditions like lack of portable water and huge rent expenses. Endit