In 3 Years, Nigeria Exports N90.33bn Solid Minerals

Solid minerals worth N90.33bn were exported between 2015 and 2017, the latest report by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has stated.

An analysis of the report also showed that China emerged the biggest importer of Nigeria’s solid minerals in 2017.

The document, which was obtained in Abuja on Wednesday, gave the value of the solid minerals’ exports in 2015 as N1.94bn.

This witnessed a leap to N11.16bn in 2016 and moved up to N77.23bn in 2017.

“This is an indication that the solid minerals sector is steadily contributing to the federation’s export earnings but requires greater government attention,” NEITI stated in the report.

The report added that about 16.34 million metric tonnes of minerals valued at $29.90m was exported in 2017.

It stated, “Nigeria’s total export was about N13.60tn with solid minerals contributing N77.23bn or 0.57 per cent of total export in 2017.”

NEITI also stated, “The major destination of Nigeria’s exports during the year under review is China. The country accounted for 68 per cent of the total export value during the year.”

Other destinations include Malaysia, Vietnam and India.

The report, however, observed that export data received from the Nigeria Customs Service include minerals not captured in the production data provided by the Mines Inspectorate Department.

It also stated that the sector’s contribution to employment in 2017 was about 0.3 per cent of Nigeria’s total employment, same as the figure recorded in 2016.

It affirmed that artisanal and small-scale miners currently dominated the sector, adding that while Nigeria’s gross revenue stood at N7.35tn in 2017, revenue specifically from the solid minerals sector represented only about 0.05 per cent.

NEITI explained that the absence of an industry-specific fiscal regime made it difficult to tie revenue flows from the solid minerals industry to the Federation Account.