According to the Foreign trade statitics released on Sunday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Abuja, the increase in merchandise trade was driven by a 30.4 per cent in the value of imports from N1,598.3billion in second quarter 2013 to N2,284.3billion in Q3 2013.
The NBS said rising import, coupled with a 45 per cent decline in export from N3,742.9billion in Q2 2013 to N3,573.4billion in Q3, resulted in a trade balance of N1,489.6billion, 30 per cent lower than that recorded for Q2.
In comparison to the corresponding quater of 2012, merchandise trade in Q3 of 2013 declined by 21.2 per cent from N7,179.46billion recorded in previous years
This, according to the report, is largely attributable to a 39.5 per cent lower value of export year on year.
While the value of import was 64 per cent higher compared to the corresponding period, the report showed that consequently,the trade balace was 97.9 per cent lower in Q3 2013 relative to corresponding period of 2013.
Year on year data merchandise trade stood at N16,098.2billion, driven by 22.9 per cent from the N20,885.9billion cumulative total recorded throught out Q3 2012.
The crude oil component of export in Q3 2013 stood at N3,087billion, an increase of 377.5billon or 13.9 per cent when compared with Q2 2013.
In contrast, the non crude oil component exhibited a sharp decline of 52 .9 per cent from N1,033.5billion recorded in the Q2 to N436.4billion.
The total value of import amounted to N2,084.8billion in the third quarter of 2013, this was N486.53billion or 304 per cent higher than N1578.2billion recorded in the previous quarter of 2013 or N813.5billion grater than the rate of import in Q3 2013.
According to the NBS report, the increase in the previous quarter can be largely attributable to a rise in import value of beverages and tobacco, machinery and transport equipment, food and live animals etc.
Analysis of Nigeria’s export by direction showed that the greatest source was China, followed by United States, UK, Belgium and Netherlands in that order.