The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday restated that the country was out of recession.

The Head of Public Affairs and International Relations Unit, Sunday Ichedi, said this in a statement in Abuja.

Mr Ichedi was reacting to claims that the Statistician-General of the Federation and NBS, Yemi Kale noted that the economy was still in recession.

“We want to emphasise and state categorically that the economy is out of recession and at no time did the NBS or its CEO state otherwise as has been reported.

“Recall that it was the same bureau that announced the end of recession in the second quarter of 2017.

“This followed the announcement of the first positive growth in the nation’s Gross Domestic product (GDP) due to five quarters of contraction.

“Economic growth as measured by GDP has remained positive ever since (0.72 per cent, 1.17 per cent and 2.11 per cent in the second third and fourth quarter 2017 and 1.95 per cent in the first quarter of 2018).

“The NBS has stated several times that the stages after an economic recession is an economic recovery where the economy moves gradually following the end of a recession toward sustainable strong growth.

“This is the stage of recovery that we are now and was alluded to by the statistician-general during his interview.

“That the economy is in the second stage of recovery, heading toward sustainable growth, which is the last stage cannot and should not be wrongly interpreted as the economy is still in a recession,’’ Mr Ichedi said.

(NAN)