Nigeria’s intra-African trade has continued to underperform expectations despite the commencement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as the trade value fell Year-on-Year (YoY) to N842.6 billion in the first quarter of 2023 (Q1’23) 11.95 percent down from N956.93 billion in Q1’22.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report on the Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics for Q1’23, showed that at N842.6 billion, Nigeria intra-African trade represented just 6.99 percent of its total foreign trade (N12.047 trillion) in Q1’23.
This is against the 7.4% contribution to its total foreign trade (N13.001trillion) in Q1’22.
On a Quarter-on-Quarter basis, Nigeria’s trade value with other African countries also declined by 24.87 percent to N842.6 billion in Q1’23 from N1.122 trillion in Q4’22.
Breakdown of the trade data, however, showed that Nigeria exported more than it imported with export value rising to N665.10 billion in Q1’23 from N444.418 billion in Q1’22, while imports fell to N177.50 billion in Q1’23 from N512.513 billion in the corresponding period in 2022.
Further analysis showed that the trade volume has been on a decline since 2021 when AfCFTA kicked off.
In 2020, the percentage of Nigeria’s intra-African trade as a proportion of its total foreign trade stood at 11.03%, the figure fell to 7.46% in 2021 and went further down to 6.5% in 2022.
