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Operators have said that the hostile and cumbersome nature of the nation’s maritime environment is the reason for the drop in importation.
The National President of the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, Mr Lucky Amiwero, in a recent chat with The PUNCH, stated that many importers had quit their jobs because the importing environment was very troublesome and unpredictable.
A document from the Nigerian Ports Authority showed that cargo imports into the country may have declined between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of this year, as empty containers in the ports dropped by 33.6 per cent.
The document sighted by our correspondent showed that during the period under review, 263, 827 empty containers littered the ports.
Containers are mostly used for importation and when there are fewer empty containers, it is an indication that few goods came into the country.
The NPA explained that in the first quarter of 2024, there were 112, 901 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers, while a total of 150, 926 TEUS were recorded same period in 2023, representing a 33.6 per cent decline in the number of empty containers.
The NPA also stated there was a 2.39 per cent drop in container throughput for twenty-foot equipment units in the first quarter of 2024.
According to the authority, the total container throughput for Q1 2024 was 396,083, down from 405,811 in the same period last year.
The PUNCH reports that the Nigeria Customs Service, in its half-year report, said it recorded a lower volume of transactions in the first six months of the year.
The service explained that the total number of single goods declarations processed in Q1 2024 was 620,467, compared to 1,013,250 SGDs in Q1 2023.
“This decline in transaction volume affected the overall revenue and trade activity, highlighting the need for strategies to boost trade engagement and efficiency,” the service stated.
A single goods declaration is the submission of electronic data/information for clearance of import, export, and transit-related goods at a single point.
However, reacting to the data, Amiwero said, noted that there is a serious drop in imports within the period under review.
“It shows that people are not importing; there is a decline in importation. When you don’t import, how do you get empty containers? Empty containers are brought through importation because Nigeria doesn’t manufacture containers.
“So first, you have to look at the aggregate of importation. What is the level of imports coming into the country within that time?” he quizzed.
According to Amiwero, many importers have quit their jobs because the importing environment is very troublesome and unpredictable.
“People are not importing because the importing environment is very strange and inconsistent, So there is not much import, and it has declined.
“It means that import has seriously declined. When you don’t import, you don’t need to have more empty containers; they come in as a result of imports,” he averred.
Also, the Deputy National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, Mr Nnadi Ugochukwu, said that agents had been clearing mostly auction cargoes and not new imports.
“The statistics in the number of empty containers may not be correct. The Nigeria Customs Service was selling an auction and in the auction that was sold, the empty containers were returned to the ports. These returned empties are not part of the import for this year. They are spillovers from previous imports that were abandoned. So, if they took proper statistics, you would see that the number would be different,”
Nnadi reiterated that there had been a very great reduction in importation of about 60 per cent.
“Majority of the goods we clear now and auction containers. There are only a very few imports that are being cleared because there is a serious reduction in imports. The reduction should be above 60 per cent,” he stated.
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