The total international trade in Nigeria is expected to grow from N23.9 trillion in 2018 to N24.6 trillion in 2019, after reaching N23.1 trillion in 2017, the Nigeria’s Maritime Industry Forecast 2018 – 2019, has projected.
The forecast, which was unveiled in Lagos on Tuesday by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), also revealed that business activities in the nation’s maritime sector are expected to grow from 2.5 percent in 2018 to 5.5 percent in 2019.
Also, the foreign exchange reserves, which reached $38.8 billion in 2017, are also expected to increase to $43.5 billion in 2018 and $48.9 billion in 2019 while the major drivers of total fleet berthing at Nigeria ports will depend on the volume of Nigerian foreign reserves and total trade.
Dakuku Peterside, director general of the NIMASA, who unveiled the forecast, said that the report was focused on charactering the current state and outlook of the Nigerian economic and business environment, while considering the drivers, emerging opportunities and challenges of the country‘s maritime industry, in the effort to provide an assessment and prediction of industry performance.
Listing other areas of growth, he said that there are expectations that the total fleet size will grow by 4.08 percent in 2018 and 4.41 percent in 2019.
According to him, oil tanker fleet size will decrease by 2.23 percent in 2018 and increase by 1.7 percent in 2019.
“The non-oil tanker fleet size is projected to increase by 8.15 percent in 2018 and 8.72 percent in 2019. The oil rig count is projected to increase by 27.67 percent in 2018 and 0 percent in 2019,” he projected.
Peterside, who stated that the Nigerian economy resumed growth in 2017, after contracting steeply in 2016, said that the immense contribution of oil to aggregate exports, underscores the importance of oil prices and production conditions in driving the recovery in trade as well.
“The identified drivers of the economy are the favourable global economic conditions arising from the recovery in oil prices and the weakening of the US dollar, alongside the positive shifts in domestic policy attributed to significant adjustments to the surrounding policy context of the economy,” said Peterside.
Earlier in his presentation titled, ‘The Economy in Nigeria and its Maritime Sector: Characteristics and Challenges,’ Doyin Salami, said that the outlook for the economy in 2018 points to a consolidation in the recovery, as the economy and trade are expected to improve.
Salami pointed out that based on the outcome of the study, maritime industry should expect to see increase in business activities in 2018 and 2019 as there would be an expected growth in the demand for the use of maritime facilities in Nigeria within the period under review.
“However, uncertainty and other factors, both positive and negative, continue to shape the growth in the sector. Two broad sets of dynamics would drive the outlook on the Nigerian maritime industry over this period. The first pertains to international developments as they relate to growth in global output and trade and the situation in the global oil market and international maritime regulatory conditions,” he said.
Salami said that the second driving factor would center on the domestic economic conditions, which speak to economic growth and the associated growth in trade; availability of and access to foreign exchange (FX) and the evolving factors in domestic maritime regulation.
Ufom Usoro, former director general of NIMASA, who commented on the report, pointed to the fact that there was need to properly captured activities in the non-oil trade as millions metric tons of cargo such as equipment come in through the nation’s seaports for the use of the agricultural sector.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
