A total of 31.41 per cent of goods imported into Nigeria are from China, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
The NBS stated in its report on ‘Foreign trade in goods statistics’ for second quarter of 2020, that Spain topped the list of Nigeria’s exported goods.
Part of the report read, “Nigeria’s imports, by country of origin, shows goods were imported mainly from China (N1.26tn or 31.41 per cent), United States (N428.9bn or 10.66 per cent), India (N322.3bn or 8.01 per cent), and the Netherlands (N202.9bn or 5.04 per cent) respectively.
“The value of exports in Q2, 2020 stood at N2.22tn, a decrease of 45.64 per cent compared to Q1, 2020 and 51.73 per cent compared to Q2, 2019.
“The year to date export amounted to N6.3tn, representing a 31 per cent decline compared to 2019.
“Exports by section revealed that mineral products accounted for the largest portion of exports, amounting to N1.87tn or 84.35 per cent, mainly due to the crude oil component.”
This section, it noted, was followed by vehicles aircraft and parts (N221.2bn or 9.96 per cent) and others.
Analysis of export by region revealed that Nigeria exported most products to Europe (N976.5bn or 44 per cent), followed by Asia (N734.1bn or 33.08 per cent), Africa (N401.4bn or 18.1 per cent), America (N105.8bn or 4.8 per cent) and Oceania (N1.7bn or 0.08 per cent).
Within Africa, goods worth N149.3bn were exported to ECOWAS member states.
All regions recorded declines in the value of exported goods during the quarter, although China and Japan each recorded increased export activity.
The NBS stated, “Exports by country of destination showed that Nigeria exported goods to Spain valued at (N310.8bn or 14 per cent), Netherlands (N243.7bn or 10.98 per cent), China (N220.4bn or 9.9 per cent), India (N195.6bn or 8.8 per cent) and South Africa (N172.2 or 7.7 per cent).
During the quarter, total trade in agricultural goods stood at N493.7bn, of which exported agricultural goods accounted for N78.1bn.
Analysis by economic region showed that most agricultural goods were exported to Asia, Europe and America valued at N43.6bn, N26.4bn and N6.6bn.
The key driver of agricultural products exports were superior quality raw cocoa beans, sesamum seeds, cashew nuts, good fermented cocoa beans and more.
The main consumers of superior quality cocoa were The Netherlands (N9.3bn), Indonesia (N3.7bn) and United States(N2.4bn).
Other agricultural exports were Sesamum seeds exported to Japan (N6bn) and to China (N2.3bn).
Also, cashew nuts worth N12bn were exported to Vietnam.
In terms of imports, durum wheat worth N41bn was imported from United States, Russia (N28.8bn) and Latvia (N24.5bn).
The value of manufactured goods trade in Q2, 2020 stood at N3.04tn.
Out of this, the export component accounted for N254.2bn.
The products that drove up manufactured export were light vessels, fire floats, floating cranes exported to Spain in the value worth N129bn.
– Punch