The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its economic growth forecast for Nigeria to 3.4% for the year 2025. This is a slight increase from its earlier estimate of 3.0% released in April 2025, showing some signs of progress in the Nigerian economy.

In addition, the IMF also gave a better outlook for 2026. It now expects Nigeria’s economy to grow by 3.2%, compared to the 2.7% it predicted earlier in April. These new figures suggest some improvement in the country’s economic performance.

These changes were published in the July 2025 edition of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report. The report also showed a slight rise in global economic expectations, with global growth now predicted to be 3.0% in 2025 and 3.1% in 2026. These are both small increases from the earlier April estimates.

The IMF also made changes to its predictions for the Sub-Saharan African region. It now expects the region’s economy to grow by 4.0% in 2025 and 4.3% in 2026. This marks small but steady improvements from the previous forecasts of 3.8% and 4.2% respectively.

“Growth is expected to be relatively stable in 2025 in Sub-Saharan Africa at 4.0 percent, before picking up to 4.3 percent in 2026,” the IMF stated.

Tunde Abidoye, Head of Equity Research at FBNQuest Merchant Bank, responded to the IMF update by saying the 3.4% forecast closely matches their own analysis, based on data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics.

He believes the upward revision could be due to better oil production and strong results in Nigeria’s service sector. However, he also added a word of caution. Even with the positive forecast, the growth is still too small to make a real impact on the poverty challenges the country faces.