Businesses say economy is getting better

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) April 2025 Business Expectations Survey (BES) report revealed an overall business sentiment index of 22.3 points for the month, reflecting broad-based optimism among respondent firms regarding the macroeconomic outlook.

This positive sentiment is largely driven by favourable expectations for the exchange rate, which remains a crucial factor underpinning private sector confidence. Respondents (firms) expressed optimism about the overall business outlook for the macroeconomy for May (25.3 index points), July (35.8 index points), and October (42.8 index points) of 2025.

The overall outlooks were even more optimistic for industry (43.3 index points), agriculture (43.3 index points), and services (42.2 index points) sectors in the next six months. Despite this prevailing optimism, firms identified significant operational challenges that could temper growth, primarily high interest rates, insecurity, and high taxes.

These challenges highlight the need to improve the ease of doing business through adopting a business-friendly interest rate, tackling insecurity, and swift implementation of the Nigerian tax bills.