Nigeria’s balance of trade reverses to deficit

Nigeria’s balance of trade position has reversed from surplus to deficit, recording a $20 million trade deficit in November 2022 as against a surplus of $50 million in the previous month, October 2022.

Disclosing this in its Monthly Economic report released yesterday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said the deficit was a result of  low crude oil export receipts during the period.

The CBN also said that crude oil and gas export receipts declined month-on-month (MoM) by 9.3 percent to $3.9 billion in November 2022 from $4.3 billion in October 2022.

The report stated: “Trade performance was weaker than expected as trade deficit was recorded, owing largely to lower crude oil export receipts.

“Provisional data shows that the trade balance swung into a deficit of $0.02 billion from a surplus of $0.05 billion in the preceding month.

“Aggregate export receipts declined by 7.7 per cent to $4.33 billion from $4.69 billion in October.

“Similarly, merchandise imports declined by 6.2 per cent to $4.35 billion from $4.64 billion in October.

“Crude oil and gas export receipts declined to $3.90 billion from $4.30 billion in October.

“In terms of share in total exports, crude oil and  gas accounted for 90.2 per cent.

“Of the total crude oil and gas export, oil constitutes 84.6 per cent, while gas accounts for 15.4 per cent.

“Non-oil export earnings rose by 16.9 per cent to $0.4 billion, from $0.35 billion in October, due, largely to sustained favorable commodity prices at the international market.

“This was due to the 7.0 per cent and 16.1 per cent increase in other non – oil products and re-exports to $0.38 billion and $0.02 billion from $0.36 billion and $0.01 billion respectively.”

(Vanguard)