The International Monetary Fund says Nigeria has failed to diversify exports at an “extensive margin.”
The IMF said this in its ‘Nigeria: Selected Issues Paper’ report, which was prepared by a staff team of the Fund as background documentation for its periodic consultation with Nigeria.
According to the report, the country has not implemented much export diversification over the years.
It read in part, “Nigeria has achieved little export diversification over the past decades. Diversification can be attained by including new commodities in the export portfolio (extensive margin) and changing the share of existing commodities (intensive margin).
“Over the past decades, Nigeria failed to diversify exports at the extensive margin, nor did it add new sub-products within the oil and the few commodities that it exports to achieve a more balanced mix of exports.”
It added that Nigeria added only 47 new products to the export portfolio between 1990 and 2020, unlike many other countries.
“Between 1990 and 2020, only 47 new products were added to Nigeria’s exports compared with an average increase of twice as many (95 products) for countries like Bangladesh, Cameroon, Pakistan, and Tanzania.
“In 2020, the total number of export products was 205, compared with an average of 258 for Sub Saharan Africa. More broadly, the export diversification index remained flat as of the 1970s after it collapsed from the high levels in the previous decade,” the report read.
The IMF further said that if the country can diversify its range of goods, there would be more intraregional trade and growth.
The report read, “Diversifying the range of goods produced creates greater possibilities for intraregional trade and opportunities for growth.”
It added, “In countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and India where export diversification increased over time, real GDP per capita rose markedly more than it did in Nigeria.”
The PUNCH had reported that Nigeria recorded a negative trade balance of N8.9tn, between January and September 2021, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Within this period, total foreign trade stood at N35.09tn, comprising N22tn imports and N13.1tn exports, leading to N8.9tn trade deficit.
