Despite CBN ban, textile tops Nigeria’s import commodities

Despite the prevailing forex restriction for import goods by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), textile is now the highest imported commodity, latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown.

Recall that in 2019 the CBN, as part of its intervention to revive the textile industry, imposed forex restriction on its importation, including woven fabrics and clothes to encourage local production and create jobs.

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The directive to restrict forex on imported goods seems not to be yielding positive results three years after following the latest report by the NBS which revealed that textile materials were the highest items that accounted for the country’s import index in 2021.

The value of imports in 2020, according to the NBS, was N19.89tn, having grown by 17.32 per cent year-on-year from 2019 to 2020 as imports stood at N16.96tn in 2019.

“The all-commodity group import index on average increased by 0.47 per cent. The highest increase was recorded by textile and textile articles, followed by boilers, machinery and appliances, parts thereof and wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal and articles,” the NBS said.

The report tagged, “Commodity price indices and terms of trade” also showed that export trade slowed down.

The apex statistics body also showed that trade is reversing in the country as exemplified by all products’ terms of trade (TOT) index which also showed a 0.25 per cent drop.

The TOT represents the ratio between a country’s export and import prices. The ratio is calculated by dividing the prices of the exports by the prices of the imports, usually in percentage.

An increase in the TOT between two periods (or when TOT is greater than 100 per cent) means that the value of exports is increasing relative to the value of imports, and the country can afford more imports for the same value of exports.