Nigeria’s earnings from non-oil exports declined by 33 percent month-on-month to $513.22 million in February 2015 on the account of a decline in the earnings from industrial products.
This is according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Economic Report for February 2015 released on Thursday. The amount of non-oil exports for February 2015 showed an increase of 20.4 percent in the corresponding period of 2014.
Research has shown that industrialisation and a strong manufacturing base are key to economic diversification and guarantees job creation, strong export base and foreign exchange earnings.
According to the report, the drop in the non- oil export earnings is a reflection of a 44.02 percent fall in export receipts from industrial products.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer surrendered to several months of battering from negative oil price shocks and political uncertainty.
In February 2015, excessive dollar demand pressure and volatility in the exchange rate forced the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to abandon its official auction window for the interbank forex market. This effectively devalued the naira by 16 percent to $1/N197.
A breakdown of non-oil receipts in the period under consideration showed that proceeds from industrial, manufactured, agriculture, food products, minerals and transport sub-sectors stood at $368.62 million, $83.58 million, $37.19 million, $13.38 million and $10.45 million, and $0.07 million respectively.
The transport sector which recorded no receipt in the previous month recorded $0.07 million in February.
The report further showed that the shares of industrial, manufactured, agriculture, food products and minerals sub-sectors in non-oil export proceeds were 71.8, 7.3, 16.3, 2.6, and 2.0 percent, respectively.
The report states that the estimated federally collected revenue (gross) in February 2015, at N560.84 billion, was lower than the receipts in the preceding month and the corresponding period of 2014 by 21.1 and 38.1 percent, respectively.
The decline in estimated federally-collected revenue (gross) relative to the monthly budget estimate was attributable largely to the shortfall in receipts from oil revenue during the month of February.
Earlier in February, accountant-general of the federation, Jonah Otunla, admitted to a “substantial loss in revenue” as a result of the massive oil price decline.
Lagos-based economist, Bismarck Rewane, says revenue would have been “sharply lower” but for the naira devaluation effect from which some exchange rate gains accrued to the government purse.
Data available on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) website have shown that the non-oil sector contribution to GDP grew by 5.59 percent in real terms in Q1 of 2015. From the 8.21 percent recorded in the previous year, this was a decline of 2.62 percentage points, and a decline of 0.85 percent from the value of 6.44 percent recorded the preceding quarter.
NBS attributes the growth in the non-oil sector was largely driven by the activities of Trade, Crop Production, Other Services, Construction and Telecommunications.
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.
JOSEPHINE OKOJIE
