Frozen Fish Tops National Imports in February, 2.5MMT Imported

• Frozen Fish Tops National Imports in February, 2.5MMT Imported

Frozen fish topped Nigeria’s imports in the month of February, according to the Nigerian Ports Authority.

Nigeria imported 2.463 million metric tonnes of frozen fish in February, more than petroleum products imported in January and February combined.

The nation imported a total of 986,492 metric tonnes of petroleum products, representing 1,387,410,984.2 litres of fuel in January and February.

The NPA Shipping Position report revealed that the amount of fuel imported in January (705,185 MT) was higher than that of February, 281,297 metric tonnes.

Speaking on the development, Chief Kunle Folarin, Chairman, Port Consultative Council said imported fuel would continue to rise until local refineries can perform better.

According to him, the refineries were more than 50 years old and could not function optimally.

He said “The refineries are epileptic; they are more than 50 years old, you cannot expect them to be optimal in their production and they are not producing 24 hours and seven days a week.

“From what we know, the need for the use of fuel is rising every day; we don’t have a public transport system that mass transits people, so everybody has to put their vehicles on the road.

“The rail which could conveniently lift 400 people at a time is not in the corridor of the metropolis.”

Despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s campaigns for local production of goods, recent reports have shown import goods continued to rice. A report by the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that Nigeria imported Wheat valued at N362 billion in 2018 as the country could only produce 60 thousand metric tonnes out of the 4.7 million metric tonnes the nation consumed annually.

Again, while local sugar production jumped by 101.1 per cent in 2018, bulk sugar imported between January 2019 and February was 318,400 MT. Suggesting that even with the positive momentum, production remained below national consumption and in most cases, manufacturers had to relied on importation to plug the deficit.