South Korean has displaced China to emerge as the top country Nigeria imported from in the third quarter of 2018.
The country for the first time became the top importing partner for Nigeria, a position China held since 2011 when Nigeria started collating the data.
“The reason China moved from its position as the top importing partner for Nigeria this time was because of the submersible drilling platform imported from South Korea during the quarter which was quite expensive,” NBS says in its foreign trade statistics report.
Of the N4.17 trillion worth of goods and services imported into the country, imports from South Korea accounted for 29.1 percent or N1.2 trillion worth of the goods.
China’s share of total imports stood at 14 percent, down from 25 percent and 22 percent in Q2’18 and Q3’17 respectively.
“I do not expect this trend to extend in the coming quarter, since the up movement by the South Korean nation was mainly driven by Nigeria’s import for submersible equipment in August (amounting to N1.16trn) and accounted for 28 percent of imports in the reference quarter,” Gbolahan Ologunro, an equity research analyst at Lagos-based CSL Stockbrokers said on phone.
On the flip side, India maintained its top spot as being the major export trading partner, constituting 16 percent of the N4.9 trillion exports recorded in the quarter.
The top five Import Trading Partners of Nigeria in Q3, 2018 were South Korea, China, Netherlands, Belgium and USA accounting for 29.11, 14.17, 11.58, 6.99, 5.37 percent, respectively, while India, Spain, France, South Africa and Netherlands were Nigeria’s major export trading partners, accounting for 15.76, 10.76, 10.31, 6.91, and 5.69 percent of total share of exports, respectively.
Import trade from African countries stood at N138.7 billion or 3.3 percent while imports from the region of ECOWAS alone amounted to N16.9 billion. However, Nigeria exported goods valued at N341.1billion or 47.69 percent to ECOWAS member states and this represents 47.69 percent of the total export trade to Africa.
Major goods imported in the period were machinery and transport equipment, which accounted for 46.5 percent of total import and N1, 02 trillion imports were mineral fuel.
Chemical and related products accounted for N388.3 billion or 9.3 percent of the total imports during the period under review while food and live animals and manufactured goods accounted for N336.6 billion N290.1 billion, respectively.
