Nigeria’s total external merchandise trade increased by 23.28 per cent to N12.03 trillion in the second quarter of the year(Q2 2021) compared to N9.76 trillion in the preceding quarter,
The National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS’) latest report on the country’s Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics for Q2 2021, despite the fact that the trade value increased by 88.71 per cent over the value of the corresponding quarter of 2020, it still represented a trade deficit of N1.87 trillion.
The Bureau attributed the year-on-year increase to sharp increase in export value during the quarter under review.
A further analysis of the report indicated that while the export component of trade stood at N5.08 trillion, representing 42.22 per cent of total trade, the import component stood at N6.95 trillion.
The NBS reported that crude oil, which remained the country’s major component of export trade, stood at N4.08 trillion or 80.29 per cent of total export.
The crude oil earnings indicated a sharp increase of 111.32 per cent in Q2 compared to N1.92 trillion in Q1. This is even as non-crude oil export recorded N1.00 trillion or 19.71 per cent of total export trade during the review period.
