By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last week said the nation’s balance of payments depreciated to deficit of $4.5 billion in the third quarter of 2018, indicating that import exceeded export by $4.5 billion.
In a report, the apex bank said this was different from the $503 million surplus recorded in the second quarter of this year.
In the report titled Brief on Balance of Payments Statistics Q3’18, the apex bank said, “The provisional Balance of Payments (BOP) estimates for Q3 2018 showed a significant turnaround in the country’s position as the overall balance of payments swung into a deficit of $4.542 billion compared to surpluses of $503.97 million and $2.787 billion recorded in the preceding quarter and corresponding period of 2017, respectively.
“The current account balance (CAB) worsened from a surplus of $4.452 billion in Q2 2018 to a deficit of $3.105 billion in Q3 2018. The financial account balance indicated an increased net incurrence of financial liabilities of $10.724 billion in the review period as against $2,575.64 million recorded in the preceding period.
“The current account indicated a negative outcome during the review period, recording a deficit of $3.105 billion as against surpluses of $4.452 billion and $1.973 million in the previous quarter and corresponding period of 2017, respectively. This development was largely attributable to the increased payments for imports
“The surplus in the Goods Account decreased significantly to $2.125 billion in Q3 2018 from surpluses of $7.510 billion in the preceding quarter and $3.416 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.
“Export earnings rose by 2.8 per cent to $16.210 billion in Q3 2018 when compared with Q2 2018. It also indicated an increase of about 35.3 per cent when compared to corresponding period of 2017.
“Earnings from crude oil and gas, which accounted for 94.4 per cent of total export earnings during the review period, increased by 9.5 per cent to $15,301.72 million in Q3 2018 when compared with the preceding quarter.
“Earnings from non-oil and electricity ex-ports decreased by 49.3 per cent to $909.04 million in Q3 2018 when compared with the preceding quarter.
“Available data showed that payments for import of goods (fob) to the economy in the review period increased by 70.5 per cent to $14.085 billion above the level recorded in the preceding quarter. This was largely as a result of 79.7 per cent increase in the imports of non-oil products.
“Net out-payments for services during the review period in-creased significantly by 35.4 per cent to a deficit of $7.024 million when compared with the level recorded in Q2 2018.
“When compared with the corresponding period of 2017, it indicated a much higher increase of about 65.0 per cent.
“Similarly, the deficit in the income account (net) increased by 6.7 per cent to $4.161 billion in the review period from a deficit of $3.898 billion recorded in the pre-ceding quarter.
“When compared with the level in the corresponding period of 2017 it indicated an increase of about 39.5 per cent. The surplus in the current transfers (net) decreased by 1.2 per cent to $5.955 million in Q3 2018 when compared with the preceding quarter. However, the level of surplus was 2.7 per cent higher than the level recorded
“Provisional Q3 2018 BOP estimates for the Financial Ac-count showed an increase in net incurrence of financial liabilities from $2.575 billion recorded in Q2 2018 to $10.724 billion in the review period. This is also significantly different from the net acquisition of financial as-sets of $3.739 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.
“Direct Investments inflow increased by 0.7 per cent to $438.84 million when compared with the preceding quarter of 2018. It however, indicated a decline of 45.0 per cent when compared to the corresponding period of 2017. Portfolio Investments inflow to the economy decreased significantly to $1.790.83 billion in Q3 2018 from $4.233 billion and $3.320 billion in the preceding quarter and the corresponding period of 2017, respectively. However, other investment liabilities increased slightly to $4.281 billion when compared with $3.226 million recorded in the preceding quarter.”
Adedapo Adesanya