Nigeria Ranked Africa’s Highest Spender On Commercial Service Imports

The World Trade Organisation has revealed that Nigeria emerged as the continent’s top importer of commercial services in 2020 with $23bn. It also spent $57bn on the import of merchandise into the country which adds up to $80bn spent on both commercial service and merchandise imports during the period.

The development comes amidst the country’s foreign exchange shortfalls.

The WTO ranking was based on its preliminary estimate from its quarterly statistics.

Based on the report, Nigeria led other African countries on the volume of commercial services  import, closely followed by Egypt which is at the 28th position globally.

The report ranked Nigeria  25th highest importer of commercial service in the world  with a share of 0.6 per cent of the total import volume.

The value was estimated at $23bn from a total of $3.776trn recorded in 2020 globally.

The $3.776trn includes the Extra-EU imports which was valued at $897bn in 2020.

But for Nigeria, import of commercial service reduced by 41 per cent in 2020, while globally commercial service import fell 22 per cent. 

This is linked to the global trade disruption induced by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Egypt’s share of commercial service import was valued $17bn which accounts for 0.45 per cent

The United States was top commercial service importer with total import accounting for 11.5 per cent and valued $434bn.

China followed the US with total import valued $378bn, accounting for 10 per cent.

On the import of merchandise trade, Nigeria ranked 30th in the world and second in Africa as it spent $57bn in 2020 a rise by 2 per cent.

South Africa was Africa’s highest merchandise importer at number 25 with the value of $84bn in 2020, while Egypt was the second highest merchandise importer with $61bn.