Export up 80% in Q1 on back of rising regional trade on finished foodstuff

The increasing demand for made-in-Nigeria Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), particularly finished foodstuff, has grown the country’s export business, especially to the neighbouring West African countries, by 80 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to Maersk Nigeria Limited’s first-quarter trade report.

The report says multinational companies are increasing their presence and building capacity to cater for not only domestic demand as part of the production from the industries are making their way as exports to other neighbouring African countries.

“The Federal Government’s drive to privatise the power sector will encourage domestic production and industry will grow to create more jobs as this will also boost export business. This is evident in the new service from Apapa-Nigeria to Tema-Ghana that Maersk Line has started to facilitate export of finished goods,” said Jan Thorhauge, managing director, Maersk Nigeria, and head of the company’s Central West Africa Cluster.

The Maersk Nigeria MD added that the increase in the export of finished goods, especially foodstuff, was an indicator that local manufacturing was increasing. Top on the list raw agricultural commodities that dominate Nigeria’s non-oil export in the period under review include cocoa, charcoal, sesame seed and cotton.

The report further reveals that most non-oil agricultural exports out of Nigeria were loaded to Europe, followed closely by exports to the Far East Asia. Provisional data also reveal that Nigeria’s export volumes remained small and volatile, depending on agricultural seasonality.

“Volumes declined from 11,000 FFE in the second quarter of 2013 to 5,600 FFE recorded in the third quarter of 2013. In the last quarter of the year, the export market experienced 68 percent leap as compared to previous quarter, ending the year at 35,000FFE which shows 9 percent increase when compared with the full-year 2012,” says the report.

“The Federal Government has done well to keep the naira valuation in check and this is very important to provide the needed stability for trade to flourish. However, high oil price has boosted national revenue in recent years, and this has contributed to some of the trade growth and also helped in shoring up foreign reserves of the country in the recent past,” it further says.

On the strategies put in place by Maersk Line to tap into the opportunities, the report reveals that Maersk Line offers a combination of direct services from the Far East, as well as relay products from other parts of the world via the company’s Western Mediterranean hub ports.

Also, the introduction of the new Far East deployment to Nigeria allows the company to offer clients in Nigeria three direct services from Far East to Nigeria.

“All services will have direct calls from main Chinese ports to cover South East Asia countries over the hub port in Malaysia. This will improve Maersk service from Western Mediterranean hub ports, resulting to 11 weekly calls into the largest ports in Nigeria,” the report adds.

It would be recalled that Maersk Line had invested $2 billion in building 22 new 4,500 TEU capacities WAFMAX ships specially designed to call West African low-draught ports from the Far East, and the ships are now fully deployed on the West Africa trade.