First quarter (Q1) trade statistics released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows total trade between Nigeria and Europe became especially vibrant in Q1 2018, with the Netherlands being responsible for 40 percent of overall trade.
Trade between Nigeria and Europe grew by 51 percent up from N2.27 trillion in Q1 2017 to N N3,438,9 trillion in Q1 2018. Import grew from N1,049,554 trillion in Q1 2017 to N2,284,294 trillion in Q1 2018 representing a 117.6 percent increase while export declined to N1,154,696 trillion Q1 2018 from N1,227,611 trillion in Q1 2017.
BusinessDay analysis shows that Nigeria exported N1,623,795 trillion worth of oil products to Europe, N373,840 billion worth of Manufactured goods and N32,663 billion worth of agricultural products.
Of the total exports to Europe standing at N3,438,990 trillion in Q1 2018, the Netherlands accounted for N1,269,272 trillion with total import and export to the northwestern Europe nation put at N305,7977 billion and N963,474 billion respectively.
Total value of trade import and export between Nigeria and the Netherlands in Q1 2018 saw export increased by more than 280 percent and import decreased by 68 percent from the corresponding quarter last year.
India was displaced by the Netherlands as Nigeria’s leading export destination notwithstanding a 27.7 percent growth in exports from N668,552 in Q1 2017 to N853,697 in Q1 2018
Exports to china dropped marginally by 1.7 percent from N63,622 billion in Q1 2017 to N62,529 billion in Q1 2017. Import from the Asian tiger jumped by more than 38 percent from N383,915 billion in Q1 2018 to N530,979 billion in Q1 2017.
A further breakdown of the report shows that manufactured good topped imports with total value in the first quarter of 2018 standing at N1,189.97 trillion representing 1.65 percent decline from N1,209.96 trillion in the 4 quarter of 2017 and 12.11 percent drop from the corresponding quarter last year (N1,061.42 trillion).
The value of other oil products import in Q1 2018 was 846.31, a 122.70 percent increase from Q4 2017 (380.03) and 5.51 percent higher than Q1 2017 (802.11).
The value of Crude Oil exports recorded in Q1 2018 (N3,580.01 billion) was 10% higher than the value in Q4, 2017 (N3,251.61 billion) and 50.74% higher than the value in Q1, 2017
(2,374.94 billion).
Other oil products exports in Q1, 2018 (N535.8 billion) also grew steadily in the reviewing quarter, with a 10.53% growth from Q4, 2017 (484.65 billion) and a 15.92% growth from the.
Manufactured goods exports in Q1 2018 (N434.37 billion) saw significant growth by 684.11% over the previous quarter (N55.39 billion), and by 576.90% when compared to Q1 2017 (N64.17 billion).
The export value for Agricultural goods in Q1, 2018 (N73.24 billion) was 63.84% higher than the value in Q4, 2017 (N44.70 billion) and 24.01% higher than the value recorded in Q1, 2017 (N59.06 billion).
Nigeria’s top export trading partners of Q1 2018 total export trade include; Netherlands, India, Spain, USA and France with corresponding share of total export standing at 25.5 percent, 18.2 percent, 8.3 percent, 8.2 percent and 6.3 percent respectively.
Top import trade partners of Nigeria are China, Netherlands, Belgium, USA and India with 21.1 percent, 12.1 percent, 10.6 percent, 6.5 percent and 6.3 percent respectively.
