Yes. It is a confirmed report that Ghana is over 180 times ahead of Nigeria in non-oil exports to America. You can find out or see the figures on http://www.nigeriansreport.com/2012/05/ghana-far-ahead-of-nigeria-in-non-oil.html?m=1

Pray, can someone tell me what Obasanjo was doing for 8 years, besides increasing our foreign reserves and introducing GSM ?

Bloody disgrace!!!

@OP.

While I don't doubt that Nigeria has work to do to grow her non-oil export, I think the author of the article is unusually scathing with the direction he takes his article in. His figure of $2.5 million, as Nigeria's non-oil export to the USA, is very innacurate.

Aside that, what consideration does market play in this? Surely with 158 million people (according to article) it stands to reason that Nigeria may actually consume a healthy amount of what she produces e.g Timber and Palm oil. We cannot simplistically posit that being bigger and more populous must translate into greater non-oil export.

The main exported commodities of African nations are:

Palm oil

Gold and diamonds

Oil

Cocoa

Timber

Precious metals

We have to look at the specific individual endowment of each nation, demand for those endowment and align issues with domestic consumption which will then produce the volume available for export. Trade partner matters as well. As an example alone the USA may get majority of Ghana's timber while China recieves most of the timber exported from Nigeria.

I don't think a like-for-like comparison of export volume reveals the whole picture. There are Countries better off than Ghana who export less to the USA than the West African Nation.

Nigeria has serious work to do to move dependency away from oil and gas export for sure but mockingly unfair comparisons of the nation to others serves no purpose and I think the author of the article is more keen to prove an opinion held than provide information because what he wrote below is wrong.

You can see that Nigeria's crude oil export to the U.S. at $33 million in 2011 [/b]is even $101 million behind Namibia's non-oil exports to the U.S in the same year.

http://www.peoplesdaily-online.com/business/economy/34920-non-oil-export-sector-to-become-prime-contributor-to-nigerias-economy-says-nepc-

[b]‘Nigeria exports N4.5tn crude oil to US annually
By punch 16/11/2011 05:35:00
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petroleum minister petroleum minister



The United States Consular General, Lagos, Mr. Joseph Stafford, has put the value of crude oil exported to his country annually by Nigeria at $30bn (N4.5tn).

He said the figure was in excess of the $5bn (N750bn) services, which the US exported to Nigeria annually, with the trade balance of $25bn in favour of Nigeria.

Stafford said this in Lagos on Tuesday during the unveiling of Sponge-Jet, a low dust abrasive blasting technology by Tricontinental Technologies.

Author of article states that Ghana's non-oil export to the USA is $454 million and Nigeria $2.5 million. According to the article below, Nigria's non-oil export to the USA and the UK exceeds billions in dollars.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/business/business-and-finance/36153.html

Nigeria records N970bn trade deficit with China
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TOLA AKINMUTIMI 04/04/2012 22:42:00
image Minister of Trade and Investment, Aganga

The increasingly changing trend of Nigeria’s merchandise trade, which in the last few years have turned Asian countries into direct beneficiaries of the nation’s lopsided exportimport trade has again resulted in a yearly N970.13 billion trade deficit with China, her largest trading partner in 2011.

According to the 2011 Foreign Trade Statistics report for the country just published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the value of Nigeria’s total imports from China during the year under review stood at N1.36 trillion compared to the exported merchandise value of N392.57 billion from the Asian country.

Quarterly classification of the trade trend showed that more goods were imported from China in the Q2 2011 with the value of imports standing at N395.59 billion while Q1 2011 followed with trade imports value of N341.80 billion. Total imports in the Q3, 2011 totalled N340.18 billion while the Q4, 2011 imports value stood at N285.14 billion.

Despite the abysmally low value of exports to China during the year, the statistics still reflected an improvement over the 2010 trade value with Nigeria’s total exports to the country valued at N216.50 billion. Imports value stood at N880.92 billion, an amount which in about N110.12 billion higher than the yearly exports value to the country in 2009.

A further analysis of the bilateral trade trend of the two countries showed that the Nigeria’s domestic market continues to show greater absorptive capacity for imported goods from China, even when the quality of the products has remained a source of serious concern of Nigerian consumers.. For instance, the total imports value for 2008 was N76.89 billion compared to N106.73 billion in 2009 and N216.50 billion in 2011.

According to the NBS Foreign Trade Statistics Report for the year under review, whereas China topped the 10 listed countries from which Nigeria derived her imported items, the country came last among the top 10 listed countries on Nigeria’s exports destination.

The United States came top on the listed trading partners with the value of her imports from Nigeria during the year standing at N1.57 trillion. This is composed of N847.09 billion of oil exports and N421.73 billion of non-oil exports. The United Kingdom came second with her imports’ value from Nigeria in 2011 totalling N900.28 billion, composed in N130.35 billion and N769.94 billion of oil and non-oil items respectively.

Gbawe thanks for informing them. I wonder what they gain by trying to bring down Nigeria's name and reputation. Nigeria is way far ahead of Ghana in virtually all ramifications. I have traversed both lands and can tell.