Nigeria records N104bn negative trade balance in Q3 2016

TOTAL value of Nigeria’s external trade in the third quarter of 2016 amounted to N4,721.9 billion (N4.721 trillion).

This figure consisted of exports worth N2,309 billion and imports worth N2,413 billion, indicating a slight negative trade balance of N104 billion.

As in previous quarters, the sector which contributed the most to the total trade was Crude Oil, which was all for exports.

In total this sector accounted for N1,944 billion, or 41.2% of the total trade in the third quarter of 2016.

The Manufacturing Sector had the second largest share of total trade, accounting for N1,218.3 billion or 25.8% of the total, but in contrast to Crude Oil, was dominated by imports.

Other Oil products was also a prominent sector, and accounted for N1,029.4 billion, or 21.8% of the total.

The remaining sectors were a relatively small proportion of total trade.

Raw Materials accounted for 6.37% of the total, Agriculture accounted for 4.43%, Solid minerals accounted for 0.43%, and trade in Energy goods was negligible at N0.1 billion.

In quarter three, Nigeria had a particularly strong export relationship with India, with export intensities of 5.6, 8.3 and 3.9 July, August and September respectively.

Spain was also a key export market with intensities of 3.6, 4.4 and 1.9 during the same months.

Despite more exports going to the US than Spain, this was due to the importance of the US as a global market, and the country nevertheless had lower intensities, of 1.2, 0.7 and 0.9.

France and the Netherlands were the other two largest export destinations, and recorded intensities of 0.8, 3.6 and 0.6 for France, and 1.1, 1.8 and 0.9 for the Netherlands.

Nigeria’s major trading partners in terms of import were China, Belgium, Netherlands, United States and India.

During the quarter, the import intensity of Nigeria with China was 1.09, for July 1.08 for August and 0.65 for September.

These figures are around one, and therefore indicate that China’s exports to Nigeria reflect the global share of imports accounted for by Nigeria.

By contrast, Belgium consumer of Nigeria’s products showed that the next leading high import intensities with Nigeria, of 4.35, 3.54 and 2.19 for the months July to September, denoting a stronger relationship.

The Country’s import intensities were also high with India (2.57, 2.49 and 1.28) and the Netherlands (4.38, 2.57 and 1 .04) during the same months.

However, the import intensity of Nigeria with United States and Spain were lower, with indices less than one other than for Spain in August.

This is possibly a result of the mix of products imported from these countries, which may have been affected more by the CBN import regulations.