Nigeria’s all-commodity terms of trade (ToT) increased by 0.01 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025, even as the value of exports increased by 0.12 per cent during the period.

The country also imported postage stamps valued at N11.4 billion from France during that period.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in its All Commodity Price and ToT report for the quarter.

The TOT is the ratio of a country’s export prices to its import prices. An increase in the terms of trade between two periods or when TOT is greater than 100 per cent means that the value of exports has increased relative to the value of imports, suggesting the country can afford more imports for the same value of exports.

However, a declining TOT means that a country must export more to buy the same amount of imports, leading to reduced purchasing power, potentially lower living standards, higher technology costs, a widening current account deficit, and greater difficulty paying foreign debt.

It also signals a weakening economic position.

In the first quarter of 2025, the terms of trade increased marginally by 0.05 per cent, only to decline by 0.46 per cent in the second quarter. It also declined by 0.1 per cent.

The marginal increase in the fourth quarter signals a slight improvement.

The bureau also said that all commodity group import and export indices on average increased by 0.11 and 0.12 per cent, respectively, in the quarter.

“The all-commodity TOT for October, November and December 2025 stood at 102.27 per cent, 102.21 per cent and 102.28 per cent, respectively.

The all-commodity group TOT decreased by 0.06 per cent in November and increased by 0.07 per cent in December, resulting in a 0.01 per cent increase between October and December 2025.

“The all-region export index increased by 0.12 per cent between October and December 2025.

This revealed general changes in export prices to the regions of the world, America (0.39 per cent), Europe (0.23 per cent), Asia (0.13 per cent), Africa (0.01 per cent) and Oceania (-0.01 per cent).

Similarly, between October and November 2025, export prices increased by 0.09 per cent, showing the changes in export price with America pegged at 0.26 per cent), Europe (0.19 per cent) Asia (0.06 per cent), Africa (0.01 per cent) and Oceania (-0.04 per cent).

On the other hand, the all-region import price index increased by 0.11 per cent between October and December owing to a change in import prices from America (0.2 per cent), Europe (0.15 per cent), Asia (0.1 per cent), Oceania (0.05 per cent) and Africa (0.04 per cent).

The month-on-month import price changes showed an increase of 0.15 per cent in November and a decrease of -0.04 per cent in December 2025. Between October and November, changes in import prices by region were: America (0.1 per cent), Europe (0.08 per cent), Africa (0.07 per cent), Asia (0.05 per cent), and Oceania (0.03 per cent).

The report shows that exports to France were valued at N1.36 trillion or 7.19 per cent of total exports.

The main commodity exported to France was petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals, crude worth N893.76 billion. This was followed by natural gas at N218.6 billion.