Non-oil Exports: Nigeria Earned $22.6bn in Four Years

BY SAM DIALA

Following an aggressive diversification course championed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the country earned a total of $22.6 billion (N8.8 trillion) from non-oil exports between 2019 and 2022, data by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have shown.

The non-oil components, which are categorised differently from ‘Non-Crude Oil”, include agricultural products, solid minerals, raw materials and manufactured goods.

Non-oil exports amounted to $7.1 billion, $3.7 billion, $5.5 billion and $6.1 billion in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively (using average exchange rate for each year). The Naira equivalent was N2.56 trillion, N1.42 trillion, N2.25 trillion and N2.55 trillion respectively.

The major traded agricultural products include cocoa beans, sesame seeds, soya beans seeds, cashew nuts, frozen shrimps and prawns, and natural cocoa butter.

The country also exported in commercial quantities ginger, groundnuts, palm nuts and kernels, and various kinds of flowers. Solid minerals include tin ores and concentrates, gold and white cement, while floating or submersible drilling/production platforms, unwrought aluminum alloys, cigarettes containing tobacco and beverages constitute manufactured goods.

‘Urea whether or not in aqueous solution’, ‘Nonmonetary gold (including gold plated with platinum) in powder form’ were in the raw material goods sector of the non-oil exports.

The CBN, which reinforced the non-oil export drive through its