Nigeria, in the first half of 2022, exported products worth $2.593 billion. This represents a 62.37 percent increase from the $1.59 billion exported within the same period in 2021, according to figures from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC).
Total export in 2022 is also higher than the $9841.1442 million exports in 2020. Ezra Yakusak, executive director/CEO, NEPC, who disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday, said the January to June performance was the highest half-year performance since 2018. He informed that a total of 4,146,534 metric tonnes of products were exported.
The executive director said the “significant growth” was in spite of the global economic recession that affected most businesses in 2021. He said over 200 products ranging from manufactured, semi-processed, solid minerals, to raw agricultural products were exported in the period under review.
“These figures were culled from the non-oil export performance reports of various pre-shipment inspection agents appointed by the Federal Government to determine the volume, value and destination of Nigerian non-oil export in line with section 12 of the Pre-shipment Inspection Act, Cap P25 LFN 2004,” he explained.
Yakusak, while giving a breakdown of the top 15 exported product in the first half year of 2022, said Urea/fertiliser was the biggest export as it recorded 32.49 percent of the total export, while cocoa beans, sesame seed and aluminum ingots contributed 12.65 percent, 7 percent and 5.07 percent respectively.
The top three destinations for Nigeria’s exports based on the value were Brazil, the United States of America (USA) and India, out of the 112 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania regions and Africa.
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“Regrettably, of the top 10 export destinations of Nigerian products, none is an African country. Only Benin and Niger Republic made it to the top 15,” he said.
“Both Benin and Niger Republic are Nigeria’s immediate neighbours and as such, they are traditionally gateways for informal export activities. This bi-annual report, therefore, indicates that the council’s campaign at mainstreaming informal export is gradually yielding results,” he added.
He also noted that unlike what was applicable in the past, the trend of products exported from Nigeria was gradually shifting from its traditional agricultural exports to semi processed/manufactured goods.
While manufactured products made up 36.28 percent of exports, the NEPC boss stated that raw agriculture products made up 33.35 percent and precious stones 13 .22 percent and others are 17.15 percent
The executive director said a total of 572 companies participated in exporting Nigerian products in the period under review. “This is an indication that Nigerian businesses are gradually embracing the diversification campaign of the NEPC by venturing into non-oil exports.
On export rejects, the executive director said none of Nigeria’s products was rejected within the period. He, however, assured that the Federal Government was working to reduce the incidences of export rejects. “The NEPC has finalised arrangements to embark on an inter-agency working/fact-finding visit to the United Kingdom to ascertain specific causes for rejection of imported commodities from Nigeria”.
“The mission is to provide Nigerian export regulatory/facilitating agencies the opportunity of observing the processes of agricultural commodities import procedures and to also interact with Port Health and Food Import Regulatory Agencies at the Border Control Points in the UK,” he added.
Yakusak expressed optimism that the council will perform better in the next half of 2022.
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