Nigeria’s non-oil exports are booming. The most exported product will shock you
Finally, one of the much-touted gains of devaluing the naira appears to be showing promise, perhaps the only bright spot of a torrid period for Nigerians bearing the brunt of the policies of the current government.
If you have been keeping an eye on Nigeria’s trade numbers lately, you might have noticed something interesting: Nigeria’s non-oil export industry is having a good start in 2025, recording a huge increase in value and volume.
Between January and June, the country exported goods worth US$3.225 billion, a clean 19.59 percent jump on the US$2.696 billion it had earned during the same period last year. This was revealed in Abuja by Nonye Ayeni, Executive Director/CEO of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), while presenting the council’s First Half-Year Progress Report on Non-Oil Export Performance for 2025.
It is on this note that I am pleased to inform you that non-oil products exported in the first half of 2025 were valued at US$3.225 billion. This shows an increase of 19.59 percent as against the sum of US$2.696 billion recorded for the first half of the year 2024. The volume also increased to 4.04 million Metric tonnes compared to the 3.83 million Metric tonnes for the same period of 2024, Ayeni said.
The boost, according to her, is that the exports of Nigeria are not only a single thing but a bunch of things coming together. To begin with, there is increased international demand for Nigerian products. Additionally, numerous new opportunities have emerged since the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) came into effect. And finally, she gives credit to the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) that is implementing some smart initiatives: conducting training sessions to exporters, standardising packaging and labelling, hand-holding in the export documentation process, and connecting producers with international buyers on a one-on-one basis.
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Today, a larger proportion of Nigerian exporters are processing and adding value to what they export. This has increased revenues and has opened up new markets such as India, Brazil, Vietnam, and a host of other countries in Africa. At the half-year stage, 236 products were exiting the country compared to 202 in the corresponding period of 2019. That inventory ranged from agricultural products, manufactured and semi-finished products.
Cocoa and its derivatives remain Nigeria’s biggest non-oil export stars. Data from Pre-shipment Inspection Agents (PIAs) show they accounted for 41.11 percent of the total export value. Ayeni explained that this surge was fuelled by global demand, better prices, and Nigeria’s growing local processing capacity. Cocoa butter, liquor, and cake are now major export earners, showing the country’s steady shift toward value addition.
In terms of individual products, cocoa beans topped the list again, making up 34.88 percent of total export value, up from 23.18 percent year. Urea/fertiliser followed with 17.65 percent (up from 13.78 percent), cashew nuts came third at 12.35 percent (up from 8.62 percent), and sesame seeds ranked fourth with 4.23 percent.
Regionally, Nigeria exported 663 million metric tonnes of goods to 11 ECOWAS countries, and another 488 million metric tonnes worth US$83.54 million to 21 African countries outside ECOWAS.
Outside the continent, the Netherlands (18.64 percent), the United States (8.42 percent), and India (8.36 percent) were Nigeria’s top three non-oil export destinations in the first half of 2025.
The trade figures of Nigeria in the first quarter of 2023 put into perspective the entire Renewed Hope Agenda that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu continues to sell. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Jumoke Oduwole, said the nation is moving beyond its previous reliance on exporting unprocessed commodities towards greater value-added manufactured exports, and the figures show the strategy is hitting its target.
