Nigeria PMI reaches 56.4, the strongest reading since February 2022
Nigeria’s private sector expanded at its fastest pace in more than four and a half years in September, with the Stanbic IBTC Bank PMI rising to 56.4 from 54.3. New orders and output grew at their quickest since February 2022, while fuel costs pushed purchase prices to a three-month high.
Muyiwa Oni, head of equity research for West Africa at Stanbic IBTC Bank, put the September reading plainly, saying business conditions “improved significantly”, with the headline PMI rising to 56.4 from 54.3 in August.
That figure is the highest since February 2022. Any reading above 50 signals improvement on the month before, and the survey of around 400 companies found output and new orders rising at their fastest rates in more than four and a half years, across all four sectors it covers.
Fuel is the pressure running the other way. Purchase prices rose to a three-month high, with firms citing fuel, animal feed and raw materials, and higher fuel prices continued to push transport costs up.
Hiring rose for a sixteenth consecutive month, though the rate of job creation stayed modest and much of it was temporary work taken on to complete specific tasks.
Oni said the September performance was consistent with growth of around 4.56% year on year in the third quarter, which would take Nigeria’s full-year growth to approximately 4.4%, up from 3.87% in 2025.
He expects manufacturing to see the biggest lift, helped by a low base from last year, “while ICT, trade, real estate, and finance & insurance will likely remain the biggest drivers of the services sector’s growth”.
