Nigeria’s earnings from non-oil exports declined by 24 percent month-on-month to $767.54 million in January 2015, a situation reflecting the 89.7 percent fall in exports receipt from the manufacturing sector.
This is according to a Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Economic Report for January 2015 released on Tuesday. The amount of non-oil exports for January 2015 showed an increase of 102.5 per cent in the corresponding period of 2014.
Research has shown that a strong manufacturing base is key to economic diversification and guarantees job creation, strong export base and foreign exchange earnings.
Data available on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) website have shown that growth in the country’s Manufacturing sector declined to 19.2 percent, 13.28 percentage points lower than 32.40 percent recorded in the corresponding period of 2013.
NBS attributes the slow growth in the manufacturing sector to headwinds such as poor electricity supply, coupled with high input cost occasioned by depreciation.
A breaking of non-oil receipts in the period under consideration showed that proceeds from industrial, manufactured, agriculture, food products and minerals sub-sectors stood at $658.52 million, $61.99 million, $36.75 million, $5.42 million and $4.86 million, respectively. The transport sector recorded no receipt during the review month.
The report further showed that the shares of industrial, manufactured, agriculture, food products and minerals sub-sectors in non-oil export proceeds were 85.8, 8.1, 4.8, 0.7, and 0.6 percent, respectively.
The report states that the estimated federally collected revenue (gross) in January 2015, at N710.78 billion, was above the receipts in the preceding month and the corresponding period of 2014 by 4.6 and 4.3 per cent, respectively.
The increase relative to receipts in the preceding month was attributed to the respective increase of 3.9 and 6.2 per cent in gross oil and non-oil revenue during the review period.
At N486.44 billion, oil receipts (gross), which constituted 68.4 per cent of total federally collected revenue, was higher than the receipts in the preceding month and the corresponding period of 2014, by 3.9 and 0.9 percent, respectively.
The rise in oil receipts relative to receipts in the preceding month was attributed to the increase in receipts from crude oil and gas exports as well as domestic crude oil/gas sales.
Analysts have also attributed the rise in Nigeria’s oil receipts by the increase in crack–spreads from its light varieties.
Crack-spread is a term used in oil refining and trading, for the differentials between the price of crude oil and the price of petroleum products.
“The main reason for the jump in prices for Nigerian varieties emanating from Agbami and Akpo fields was buoyant demand caused by widening naphtha crack spreads,” Platts a leading provider of energy and petrochemicals information.
Non-oil exports fell 18 percent to $2.43 billion in 2014, from $2.97 billion recorded by the end of 2013, data compiled by Cobalt International Services and released by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) have shown.
Export of leather, skins and hides was $531.3 million by end of 2013, but declined to $488 million in 2014.
JOSEPHINE OKOJIE
