Nigeria’s Total Trade Value for 2016 hits N17.34 Billion
The value of Nigeria’s total trade for 2016 amounted to N17.345.0 billion which is 6.5% higher than the value recorded for the year 2015, Economic Confidential can report authoritatively.
Latest report issued by the National Bureau of Statistics indicates that Nigeria’s external trade in the fourth quarter of 2016 was valued at N5, 286.6 billion. The export component stood at N2.978.9 billion while the import component stood at N2.307.6 billion leading to a trade surplus of N671.3 billion.
In the report, trade by sector showed that crude oil exports had the largest share of the total trade, accounting for N2.425.4 billion or 45.9 percent trade in Q4 2016. The second major contributor to total trade by sector was
manufactured goods with N1.167.1 billion or 22.1% of total trade. This was followed by other (non crude) oil products with N1.153.9 billion or 21.8%, agricultural goods which accounted for N212.7billion or 4%, raw
material goods which accounted for N309.3billion or 5.9% and Solid mineral goods which stood at N13.1billion or 0.3% of total trade in Q4 2016.
Nigeria’s External Trade in Q4 2016
Nigeria’s export intensity in the months of October, November and December 2016 was highest for South Africa with export intensities of 8.9, 7.3 and 4.1 respectively. Export intensity in Q4 2016 was also intense with India with export intensities of 5.8, 5.8and 1.7 for the last three months of 2016. Spain and
Netherlands also had high export intensities with export intensities of 4.8, 2.9 and 2.0 for Spain and 2.2, 1.5and 2.2 for the Netherlands.
Although United States was one of Nigeria’s major trading partners, its export intensity was low with 0.6, 0.6 and 0.2 for the last three months of 2016. Index/ Re-exports (Q4 2016)
Import intensity follows the same concept of export trade intensity except that in this case it relates to imports. Nigeria’s major import trading partners in Q4 2016 were China, Belgium, Netherlands, United States and India. With respect to import intensity, China has been the most important source of imports for Nigeria
throughout 2016 recording import intensity values of 1.1, 0.8 and 0.5 in the last quarter of 2016. Belgium had import intensities of 5.6, 3.6 and 2.3 for the same months followed by Netherlands and India that have import intensities of 3.5, 1.4 and 0.6; 2.2, 2.5 and 1.1 respectively. However, the import intensity of Nigeria
with United States was lower with 0.7, 0.6 and 0.4
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday, March 6, 2017, carried out another round of retail interventions in the interbank FOREX market by providing a total sum of $367,134,329.93 to meet the forwards requests of customers.
A breakdown of the forwards shows that the sum of $144,073,753.07 was for 45 days forwards, while $223,060,576.86 was for 60 days.
The CBN Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, confirmed the release, adding that the move was in line with the Bank’s determination to ease the foreign exchange pressure on various sectors through forward sales under the new flexible Foreign Exchange regime to keep the market liquidity.
