Nigeria spends over N2tn on made-in-China products in Q1 2021

Nigeria’s growing appetite for made-in-China products resulted in the country spending N2.009 trillion on imports from the Asian nation in the first three months of this year.

This amount spent importing Chinese products accounted for N29.34 percent of Nigeria’s total imports of N6.85 trillion.

This was revealed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest foreign trade in goods statistics report, released over the weekend.

Some of the items imported from China include vegetable fats valued at N21.4 million and salt used in animal feed priced at N655.32 million.

Other items captured in the report are imported motorcycles (N30.9 billion), antibiotics, (N9.9 billion), Machines (N75.1 billion), Glutamic acid (N6.73 billion), and Items for infant use (N6.4 billion) and calcium sulphate(N591.67 million).

Netherlands came in next with N726.09 billion worth of goods imported into the country which represents 10.60 percent of the total imports.

Nigeria’s import from the United States followed with N608.12 billion which accounts for 8.88 percent of total imports.

India, with a value of N589.1 billion, and Belgium, with a value of N238.5 billion, rounded out the top five nations. Both nations contributed 8.60% and 3.48 % of total exports, respectively.

Import trade classified by region revealed Asia accounted for 8.45 percent of total imports valued at N3.319 trillion.

Read also: MADE-IN-NIGERIA: Be sector-specific in support for local contents, MAN urges FG

Europe was followed by America with N827.8 billion or 12.08 percent, Africa with N183.4 billion or 2.68 percent, and Oceania with N48.5 billion or 0.71 percent.

Imports from ECOWAS countries accounted for N20.8 billion of the total amount recorded for Africa.

Import Intensity Index with five major trading partners shows that during the first quarter, Nigeria’s import intensity index with the major importing partners (China, the Netherlands, India, and Belgium) was higher in all months.

Import intensity of exports is the degree of value addition of an imported item that subsequently gets exported.

China reported 1.7, 1.5, and 2.0 in January, February, and March, respectively.

Higher indexes were also reported for the Netherlands (1.0, 4.4, and 1.0), India (3.4, 5.1, and 4.2), and Belgium (1.0, 1.3, and 1.4), whereas the United States reported lower indexes of 0.9 and 0.6 for January and February, respectively, except for March, when it registered 1.3.

Some of the items re-exported in the report include helicopter, refrigerator, drilling machines among others

By David Ibemere…

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