Nigeria’s total merchandise trade rose to N13.3 trillion in Quarter Three of 2021, representing 10.43 percent increase over N12.02 trillion recorded in Quarter Two, Simon Harry, the Statistician-General of the Federation, has said.
Harry announced this on Monday, December 6, 2021, in Abuja during a media conference on the “Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics for Quarter Three, 2021”.
He said that of the N13.3 trillion, export trade value was N5.1 trillion, while import trade was valued at N8.1 trillion, resulting to a negative trade balance of N3.02 trillion.
According to him, this was majorly due to increasing in import of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) with N1.05 trillion from N782.46 billion, Gas Oil with N225.63 billion from N152.53 billion, and other items.
“Comparing third quarter to second quarter, total trade grew by 10.43 percent from N12.02 trillion, export trade grew by one percent from N5.07 trillion.
“Import trade also grew by 17.32 percent from N6.95 trillion, while trade balance recorded a deficit of 61.62 percent from N1.87 trillion in quarter two depicting a decline.”
The statistician-general said that in terms of exports, Nigerian export trade was mainly dominated by crude oil which amounted to N4.02 trillion (78.47 percent) of total export in the third quarter.
This was followed by natural gas, liquefied with N487.49 billion (9.50 percent), floating or submersible drilling platforms with N163.70 billion (3.19 percent), and Urea, whether or not in aqueous solution with N107.17 billion (2.08 percent).
On the other hand, imports were mainly petrol valued at N1.05 trillion (12.91 percent), durum wheat valued at N315.17 billion (3.87 percent), gas oil N225.63 billion (2.77 percent), and used vehicles N185.41 billion (2.27 percent).
Harry said that in terms of trading partners, the top five major trading partners in export trade during the period under review were India with N758.1 billion, Spain N627.01 billion, Italy N446.04 billion, France N363.23 billion, and the Netherlands with N242.49 billion.
Similarly, the top import trading partners were China with N2.44 trillion, India N710.35 billion, United States N599.12 billion, Netherlands N554.23 billion, and Belgium N434.12 billion.
The report, which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, said that major traded agricultural products were good fermented Nigerian cocoa beans, superior quality raw cocoa beans, and sesame seeds.
Others were cashew nuts in shell, other frozen shrimps and prawns, shelled cashew nuts, Brazil nuts, in shell and frozen rock lobster, and other sea crawfish.
NAN reports that foreign trade in goods statistics records the exchange or trade of goods between Nigeria and her trading partners.
