Nigeria Economy Rebasing to Displace S. Africa, Renaissance Says

Nigeria’s plan to rebase its gross domestic production figures next year may boost the assessment of the size of its economy by as much as 60 percent, leapfrogging South Africa as the continent’s largest nation in terms of total wealth, Renaissance Capital Ltd. said.

Africa’s biggest oil producer may see its economy measured at between about $384 billion and $424 billion in 2014, according to projections by Charles Robertson, the London-based global chief economist at RenCap, in an e-mailed note to clients today. That would compare to about $370 billion for South Africa’s economy, he said.