Nigeria’s Trade Surplus at N681.3b in Q3

By United Capital Research

The National Bureau of Statistics recently published Nigeria’s foreign trade statistics for Q3-18, which showed that trade balance (exports minus imports) during the period was a surplus of N681.3 billion, representing a 67.6 percent decrease from the figure recorded in Q2-18.

This was underscored by the 73.8 percent quarter-on-quarter spike in imports which more than offset a 7.8 percent q-o-q decline in exports.

Looking through the export composition, crude oil exports (+10.0 percent q-o-q) accounted for a whopping 81.8 percent of total exports, while Other Oil Product exports (+5.3 percent q-o-q) accounted for 11.4 percent of total exports, bringing total oil-related exports to 93.2 percent of total exports (vs to 95.4 percent in Q2-18).

Elsewhere, Agricultural (-47.2 percent q-o-q), Solid Mineral (-51.9 percent q-o-q), Energy (-6.0 percent q-o-q) and Manufacturing (-5.9 percent q-o-q) exports, which cumulatively account for 89.9 percent of non-oil exports, all declined during the period.

These realities clearly indicates that while Nigeria’s foreign trade still remains dominated by oil, weaker non-oil exports reflects the poor state of reforms required to diversity the export base of the economy.

Meanwhile, the log-jam at the Lagos port remains a pain point, as this continues to drag trade activities. Nevertheless, factoring in implementation lags associated with the efforts of some state governments to boost non-oil activities, improvements may come through in the medium long term.