Nigeria’s foreign trade dropped by 10% in 2020 – NBS

Nigeria recorded a 10.3 percent decline in foreign trade last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.

In the Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics Quarter Four 2020 report published on its website on Tuesday, the Bureau said Nigeria recorded N32.42 trillion worth of foreign trade in 2020, lower than N36.15 trillion for 2019.

According to the report, the value of total imports in 2020 stood at N19.898 trillion or 17.3 percent higher than the N16.96 trillion recorded in the previous year.

It added that total exports dropped by 34.8 percent from N19.19 trillion in 2019 to N12.522 trillion in 2020.

The merchandise trade deficit in 2020 stood at -N7.375 trillion.

Giving an overview of the Q4, 2020 merchandise, NBS said total trade stood at N9.120 trillion during the year.

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However, this was 8.9 percent higher than the figure recorded in Q3 but was 9.9 percent lower than Q4 2019 value.

It said: “The value of trade in Q4 was the highest recorded over the past year.

“The export component of trade stood at N3.194 trillion, an increase of 6.7 percent over the preceding quarter but a drop of 33 percent over the previous year.

“Further, the share of exports in total trade declined to 35 percent in Q4 from 47 percent a year earlier.”

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