Nigeria's non-oil economy growth rate leads Africa, with the mining and digital industries working in tandem
On November 12, 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria released the latest economic data. In the first three quarters of 2025, the country's GDP grew by 4.2% year-on-year. Among them, the non-oil industry contributed as much as 96.1%. Multiple business forms such as mineral development, digital economy, and manufacturing developed in a coordinated manner. It has pushed the national economy to completely break away from its reliance on oil, with a growth rate ranking among the top in major African economies.
The development of mineral resources has become the core growth pole of the non-oil economy. Under the support of a trillion-naira special budget and the guidance of the "local processing" policy, mineral projects such as lithium, rare earths, gold, and lead-zinc have been implemented intensively. The contribution rate of the mining industry to GDP has risen from 7.1% in 2023 to 12.8% in the first three quarters of 2025. In addition to traditional minerals, the industrial development of non-metallic minerals such as granite and gypsum is accelerating, forming a development pattern of diversified minerals advancing in parallel. In the first half of 2025 alone, it attracted over 1.2 billion US dollars of foreign investment.
The integrated development of the digital economy and manufacturing has injected new impetus into economic growth. In the first three quarters of 2025, Nigeria's fintech financing scale exceeded 1 billion naira, the penetration rate of mobile payment reached 72%, and the transaction volume of e-commerce platforms increased by 38% year-on-year. Digital technology is accelerating the empowerment of traditional industries such as mining and agriculture. In the manufacturing sector, the growth rates of industries such as food processing, building materials, and electronic assembly have remained above 5%. A building materials industrial cluster relying on local mine
