TheCable

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) says Nigeria is the number one importer of commercial services in Africa.

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

According to the data, in 2020, Nigeria ranked number of 25 largest importer of commercial services in the world, while Egypt emerges second in Africa and number 28 globally .

However, Nigeria is absent on the list of top exporters of commercial services in the world, while Egypt and Morocco made the list of top 30 exporters worldwide among African countries.

Both countries (Egypt and Morocco) emerged number 26 and 27 respectively as the largest exporters of commercial services worldwide.

Meanwhile, 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.

Similarly, 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”.

The trade organisation projects that Africa’s export will grow by 8.1 percent in 2021 and 3.0 percent in 2022, however, it says that depends on travel expenditures picking up over the course of 2021, which would strengthen demand for oil.

WTO further projects that Africa’s import will likewise grow to 5.5 percent in 2021 and 4.0 percent in 2022, while gross domestic product (GDP) market exchange rate will grow to 2.6 percent and 3.8 percent this year and in 2022 respectively— after a decline of 2.9 percent in 2020.