Despite the federal government’s efforts to diversify the economy through non-oil exports, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) revealed that non-oil exports dropped from $4.8 billion in 2022 to $4.5 billion last year.
NEPC equally attributed the decline to factors such as rejections, poor certification of products, political crises in neighboring African countries, exchange rate challenges as well a surge in international trade among others.
The NEPC Chief Executive Officer, Nonye Ayeni, disclosed this yesterday while presenting the council’s progress report on the non-oil export performance in 2023 in Abuja.
Ayeni explained that a total of 273 different products were exported in the period under review ranging from manufactured, semi-processed, solid minerals to agricultural commodities, which had a notable increase of approximately 28.04 per cent compared to the preceding year.
“A breakdown of the result shows the following based on information received from pre-shipment inspection agents (PIAs), of the top 20 products exported in the year 2023, urea, cocoa, beans, sesame seed, soya-beans/meal, cashew nuts/kernels, aluminum ingots and hibiscus flower were top of the list,” she said.
She said the top commodities in terms of total exported products were urea/fertilizer which accounted for 20.1 per cent, followed by cocoa beans at 13.19 per cent and sesame seeds at 9.03 per cent.
She said: “Of the top 20 exporting companies in Nigeria, Indorama, Eleme Fertilizer and Chemical Limited took the lead with $524.33 million in value while Dangote Fertilizer Limited recorded the second-highest value of $383.07 million.
She stressed that a total of 32 banks participated in the establishment of NXP forms for export for the year with a total number of 21,390 NXP forms processed. Zenith Bank Plc processed the highest NXP forms at 39.09 per cent while United Bank of Africa (UBA) Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Plc recorded 10.55 per cent and 9.88 per cent respectively.
The NEPC boss implored financial institutions to take advantage of the opportunities in the non-oil export sector by supporting exporters to enhance their capacity to scale up productivity and access international markets, especially with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation.
