Nigeria’s quest for diversified foreign exchange earnings away from oil not feasible for now as revenue from the manufacturing export sector plunged 166 per cent to N778.4 billion from the N2.1 trillion height reached in 2019.
Operators in the sector blamed poor state of infrastructure, logistics and other binding constraints which they said have worsened the operating environment in recent years, Vanguard reports.
The trend since 2019 has been downwards recording significant decline to N960.7billion attributed to COVID-19 in 2020, while a minor recovery was recorded in 2021 at N1.15trillion. But in 2022 a huge drop to N781.1billion was recorded and another significant drop to N778.4 billion was recorded in 2023.
Within the same period, the share of manufacturing exports to non-oil exports also dropped to 24.8 per cent in 2023 from 82.4 per cent in 2019.
In its Africa Pulse publication, the World Bank specifically blamed the country’s dwindling foreign trade on poor infrastructure and inefficient logistics, among other factors. According to the World Bank, the cost of trade in Nigeria and Ethiopia is four to five times higher than what obtains in the United States due to insecurity, higher transportation costs, topography and poor road infrastructure.
