Nigeria’s trade surplus rises 69% to $11.58bn

Nigeria’s trade surplus rose year-on-year (YoY) by 69 percent to $11.58 billion in the first ten months of 2022 (January to October), from $6.85 billion in the corresponding period of 2021.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in its Economic Report for October, 2022 released yesterday, showed that export receipts rose YoY by 14 percent to $54.21 billion in 2022 from $47.46 billion in the corresponding period of 2021.

The report also shows that merchandise imports rose YoY by 1.47 percent to $42.61 billion in 10 M’22 from $41.99 billion in the period.

In the report, CBN noted that Nigeria’s trade surplus fell month-on-month (MoM) by 93.7 percent to $50 million in October 2022 from $750 million in September 2022 amidst higher import bills.

According to CBN, import increased by 34.9 per cent to $4.64 billion driven by the rise in the import of petroleum products to $1.24 billion from $120 million in September.

CBN said: “Available data shows a decline of 93.7 per cent in trade surplus to $0.05 billion, from $0.75 billion in the preceding period.

“Aggregate export receipts rose by 11.9 per cent to $4.69 billion, relative to $4.19 billion in September 2022. Similarly, merchandise import rose by 34.9 per cent to $4.64 billion, from $3.44 billion in September 2022.”

However, the data indicated impressive developments in crude oil trade as, according to CBN, the decision by the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries, OPEC+ to cut global production by 2mb/d from November 2022 stoked higher crude oil prices at the international market, thereby resulting in improved crude oil export earnings.

The report stated: “Crude oil and gas export receipts rose to $4.30 billion, compared with $3.81 billion in September 2022.

“A breakdown reveals that receipts from crude oil export grew by 13.3 per cent to $3.65 billion (77.9 per cent of total export), from $3.23 billion in the preceding month.

“Similarly, the price of Nigeria’s reference crude, the Bonny Light, rose by 3.5 per cent to an average of $96.56pb, from $93.25pb in September 2022.

“Gas export receipts also increased by 9.6 per cent to $0.64 billion (13.7 per cent of total export) from $0.58 billion in the preceding month.

“Non-oil export earnings rose by 3.6 per cent to $0.40 billion, from $0.38 billion in September 2022, largely, due to sustained favourable commodity prices at the international market.”