Nigeria’s trade surplus rose year-on-year by 69 percent to $11.58 billion in the first ten months of 2022 from $6.85 billion in the corresponding period of 2021.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in its Economic Report for October 2022 released last week showed that export receipts rose year-on-year by 14 percent to $54.21 billion in 2022 from $47.46 billion in the corresponding period of 2021.
The report also showed that merchandise imports rose by 1.47 percent to $42.61 billion from $41.99 billion during the period.
In the report, CBN noted that Nigeria’s trade surplus fell month-on-month 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.
“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,” the CBN report said.
“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,” it added.
