Nigeria Records Poor Exports In 2020 – Report

Nigeria has been listed as one of the countries that performed terribly in terms of exports in 2020.

The report released on Wednesday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD listed Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as other countries with poor exports in the same period.

The report titled, ‘East Asian economies drive global trade recovery’ said countries such as China, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Uganda and Vietnam experienced relatively better export performance in 2020.

The UNCTAD report said global trade recovered in the last quarter of 2020, reducing its overall decline for the year to about nine per cent, according to UNCTAD’s new Global Trade Update.

Similarly, imports and exports of goods grew by about eight per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020, while trade in services stagnated as measures taken in the global fight against COVID-19 continued to affect sectors such as travel.

UNCTAD economist Alessandro Nicita said, “The recovery process has been uneven, with many countries lagging.”

The East Asian nations were described as the most successful during the 2020 period.

It read, “The recovery of Q4 2020 was largely driven by the trade of goods from and to developing countries, especially by the very strong performance of East Asian economies.

“On a year-over-year basis, trade in goods originating from East Asia grew about 12 per cent in Q4 2020, with goods imports increasing by about 5 per cent.”

It added, “In contrast, negative trends remained for goods exports originating from most other regions, even in Q4 2020.”