Nigeria Ranked Number One Importer In Africa By WTO

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ranked Nigeria as the number one importer of commercial services in Africa.

This was disclosed in WTO’s data on the ‘Leading Exporters and Importers of Commercial services excluding intra-EU Trade 2020’, released.

The data stated that Nigeria ranked 25 largest importer of commercial services in the world, while Egypt emerged second in Africa and number 28 globally in 2020.

However, Nigeria was not found on the list of top exporters of commercial services in the world, but Egypt and Morocco made the list of top 30 exporters worldwide among African countries.

Egypt and Morocco emerged number 26 and 27 respectively as the list of largest exporters of commercial services worldwide.

The United States (US) ranked first as the top commercial importer and exporter of goods, the United Kingdom (UK) followed as the second largest exporter of goods with China, India and Singapore.

China, UK, Japan and Singapore joined US as the top countries for importation of goods in 2020.

WTO said: “The impact of the pandemic on merchandise trade volumes differed across regions in 2020, with most regions recording large declines in both exports and imports.

“Regions rich in natural resources saw the largest declines in imports, including Africa (8.8 percent), South America (9.3 percent) and the Middle East (11.3 percent), probably due to reduced export revenues as oil prices fell around 35 percent.”

According to the trade organization, there’s a projection that Africa’s export will grow by 8.1 percent in 2021 and 3.0 percent in 2022, but this depends on travel expenditures picking up over the course of 2021, which would strengthen demand for oil.

WTO also projected 5.5 percent growth in Africa’s import by 2021 and 4.0 percent in 2022, while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) market exchange rate will grow to 2.6 percent and 3.8 percent this year and next year respectively, after a decline of 2.9 percent in 2020.