India becomes Nigeria's top export destination in Q3

India has taken the first place as Nigeria's major export destination with a total of $2.02 billion on account of crude sales, representing 17.5 percent of the country's total export for the third quarter of this year, an official statement said on Friday.

The data was given in the National Bureau of Statistics' (NBS) quarterly release.

In 2014-15, the Indian High Commission said India imported a total of $13.53 billion worth of crude and petroleum products in 2014-15 against $13.96 billion in 2013-14.

"Bilateral trade between India and Nigeria in 2014-15 stood at $16.36 billion, which was 2 per cent less compared to previous year figure of $16.98 billion," the High Commission added.

It said India's exports to Nigeria have grown gradually during the last few years - from $1.08 billion in 2007-08 to $2.68 billion in 2014-15. While India's exports to Nigeria marginally increased from $26.67 billion in 2013-14 to $26.81 billion in 2014-15, imports from Nigeria decreased from $14.01 billion in 2013-14 to $13.68 billion in 2014-15.

Nigeria is India's largest trading partner in Africa and India is the largest trading partner of Nigeria globally.

The NBS figures said the Netherlands is the second major export destination with $1.2 billion representing 10.5 percent and followed by Spain with $1.04 billion representing 9.1 percent, the NBS said.

It said that the value of the nation's merchandise exports totaled $11.58 billion in the third quarter of 2015, representing a decrease of $1.59 billion or 12.1 percent , over the previous year's figure of $13.17 billion.

The decline was attributed to a fall in crude oil exports by $1.85 billion or 18.8 percent over the preceding quarter.

"Nevertheless the structure of exports is still dominated by crude oil, which contributed $7.99 billion or 69.1 percent to the value of total domestic exports in 2015. Natural liquefied gas recorded $1.31 billion of the total export value during the period under review," the NBS added.

Nigeria's total external merchandise trade decreased by as much as $1.67 billion to $1.9 trillion in the third quarter of this year compared to $4.35 trillion in the previous quarter, according to the NBS.

Compared to the third quarter of 2014, the value of total merchandise trade decreased by $2.49 trillion or 38.3 percent as a result of a $132.4 billion or 7.3 per cent and $0.02 trillion or 50.3 per cent decline in imports and exports respectively relative to the corresponding quarter of last year.

(Francis Kokutse can be contacted at fkokutse@gmail.com)