Data from the National Bureau of Statistics have shown that between December 2017 to December 2020, Nigeria has generated a total sum of N6.5 trillion from non-oil exports.
This sum is N5.8 trillion lower than its N12.3tn ($30bn) target set by the Federal Government under its zero-oil plan.
In 2016, the Nigerian Promotion Council conceived the Zero Oil Plan (a core component of the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan) to increase the contribution of non-oil exports to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product by 20 percent.
In NEPC 2016 annual report, the focus of the plan is to ‘generate at least a minimum of 40 – 50 percent of Nigeria earnings from non-oil export’.
The report also disclosed that the plan was expected to grow non-oil foreign exchange to $30 billion by 2020.
The $30 billion was to be generated from 11 strategic export products – such as petrochemicals, palm oil, cocoa, soybeans, rubber – with high financial value to replace oil.
The $30 billion target when converted to naira using the current official exchange rate of N411/$ equals N12.3 trillion.
“The Nigerian Export Promotion Council launched the Zero Oil Plan, a medium and long term strategy aimed at diversifying the economy from oil. The Zero Oil Plan has become a key component of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
“The focus is to generate at least a minimum of 40 – 50 per cent of Nigeria earnings from non-oil export. The plan was presented to different states, development partners and donor agencies and has been widely accepted.
“The overall targets set for the zero oil plan include: to grow non-oil foreign exchange from $2.7bn base to $30bn by 2020.”
A breakdown of non-oil exports during the review period shows that in 2017, non-oil exports contributed N629.9 billion or 4.6 percent of the total export of N13.6 trillion.
Out of the total export of N18.5 trillion recorded in 2018, only N1.9 trillion was generated from the export of non-oil products.
In 2019, non-oil exports accounted for N2.5 trillion of the total export of N19.2 trillion recorded at the end of the year.
For 2020, Nigeria generated N1.4 trillion from non-oil exports, which constituted only 11.4 percent of its N12.5 trillion worth of export.
During the period under review, the Federal Government generated a total sum of N63.79 trillion from exports, out of which N6.5 trillion accrued from non-oil exports while N50.8 trillion was generated from exporting crude oil.