By Adedapo Adesanya
For the third consecutive quarter, Nigeria has recorded a negative trade balance or trade deficit, recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.
Business Post reports that the trade balance, also known as the balance of trade (BOT), is the difference between the value of imports and exports of a country in a period.
According to the NBS, in the second quarter of 2020, the trade balance of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, recorded a deficit of N1.8 trillion.
This was because, in the period under review, the total value of exports in Nigeria stood at N2.2 trillion, while the value of imports stood at N4.0 trillion in Q2 2020.
In the first quarter of 2020, the country suffered a trade deficit of N421.3 billion, while in the fourth quarter of 2019, the trade deficit was N579.1 billion.
In the Foreign Trade in Good Statistics report for Q2 2020 released by the stats office on Wednesday, the total value of trades between April and June this year stood at N6.2 trillion, lower than the N8.6 trillion recorded both in Q1 2020 and Q2 2019.
A critical look at the export component of the trades in the second quarter of this year showed that mineral products accounted for the largest portion of exports, amounting to N1.9 trillion mainly due to the crude oil component. It was followed by vehicles aircraft and parts (N221.2 billion) and others.
Analysis of export by region revealed that Nigeria exported most products to Europe (N976.5 billion), followed by Asia (N734.1 billion), Africa (N401.4 billion), America (N105.8 billion) and Oceania (N1.7 billion). Within Africa, goods worth N149.3 billion were exported to ECOWAS member states.
For the destination of the exported products by country, Spain accounted for the highest valued (N310.8 billion), followed by the Netherlands (N243.7billion), China (N220.4 billion), India (N195.6 billion) and South Africa (N172.2).
An analysis of the imports showed that the fall in value in Q2 2020 was due to the decrease in the value of mineral fuels (N1.0 trillion), machinery and transport equipment (N147.2 billion) and miscellaneous manufactured articles (N157.5 billion) against their respective values in Quarter 1, 2020.
The structure of imports under this category showed that machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share of imports, at N1.6 trillion of total imports, followed by chemicals and related products, valued at N776.3 billion and food and live animals worth N648.6 billion among others.
The agency said during the quarter, Nigeria imported goods mainly from Asia worth N2.1 trillion. Other imports originated from Europe worth N1.1 trillion, while imports from America and Africa amounted to N605.2 billion and N174 billion respectively. Also, import from Oceania stood at N50.6 billion, while goods valued at N31.1 billion originated from ECOWAS.
By country, goods were mainly imported from China and they were worth (N1.3 trillion, while United States accounted for N428.9 billion, with India accounting for N322.3 billion, and the Netherlands accounting for N202.9 billion.
Modupe Gbadeyanka