The latest monthly Economic Report from the CBN puts non-oil exports provisionally at US$481m in August, indicating a rise of 113% y/y and a decline of 13% q/q. The q/q decrease was partly linked to a significant reduction in receipts from food, mineral as well as manufactured products. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently disclosed that Nigeria loses an estimated US$10bn annually from port limitations such as delayed export processing time as well as logistics issues (i.e. poor roads leading to the ports amongst others).
- The sectoral breakdown shows that proceeds from manufactured products stood at US$262m in August, representing 20% of total non-oil export proceeds. Furthermore, proceeds from agricultural products accounted for 25% of the total during the same period.
- For the latter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the top three agricultural exports as at end-June included cashew nuts, sesame seeds and cocoa beans.
- Industry sources suggest that export earnings from cashew were estimated at US$402m last year. This figure could slip in 2018 due to the current decline in global market prices for various grades of cashew as well as challenges with logistics.
Sources:: CBN; FBNQuest Capital Research
- The Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) has earmarked N37bn to support the export of agricultural commodities from production to the exporting stage across all states in the country. Essentially, NEXIM will offer a N1bn loan to each state at a single-digit interest rate.
- The implementation of the re-introduced export expansion grant (EEG) has been slow; N19bn was set aside this year for the EEG. However, we understand that the EEG allocation was one of the projects cut by the National Assembly before the passage of the budget. Based on local newswire reports, the EEG is now N13bn.
