By Ayorinde Taiwo (SIWES student, Gate Way Polytechnic Saapade)
After trailing global growth in 2023, projections indicate a 2.3% growth in global trade for 2024, reflecting a normalization of trade patterns following last year’s exceptional weakness.
The World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report notes that global trade in goods and services barely expanded in 2023, growing by an estimated 0.2%—the slowest in the past 50 years outside global recessions.
Goods trade experienced a contraction last year, marking the first sustained decline outside a global recession in the past two decades.
Nigeria’s third-quarter 2023 total trade stood at N18,804.29bn, with exports at N10,346.60bn and imports at N8,457.68bn.
Exports increased by 60.78% compared to the previous quarter and by 74.36% compared to the same quarter in 2022. Imports rose by 47.70% compared to the second quarter of 2023 and by 33.33% compared to the same quarter in 2022.
Despite a World Bank projection of 3.9% global growth, more than one percentage point below the previous decade’s average, low-income countries are expected to grow at 5.5%, slightly weaker than previously anticipated, following a disappointing performance in the previous year.
