Nigeria exported goods worth $369,718,744,000 (approximately N113.4bn) to Vietnam in 2017, according to data obtained from Vietnam Customs.
The items exported include; Cashew nuts worth $300.6m, wood and wood products, $24.3m, Sesame seeds, $11.5m, soya beans, $937m, animal feed and raw materials, $743.4m, cotton, $661m, ores and other minerals, $619m, other commodities, $30.3m.
Nigeria’s imports from Vietnam during the year under review consist of mobile phones and accessories worth $10,033,951,000, textile and garment worth $9.1m, ships and boats worth $8.5m and spare parts (completely knocked down and semi-knocked down units) worth $3.6m.
Others are; cigarettes, papers, shaving blades, plastic materials, chemical products, animal feed, raw materials, chemicals, seafood, machinery, equipment and parts, accessories for textile garment, leather, shoes and tea, iron and steel products, among other items.
In total, Nigeria imported goods worth $63.8m (N19.6bn) from Vietnam in 2017.
In his opening speech during the presentation of the report in Lagos, the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Nigeria, Pham Tuan, said that the two-way trade between Nigeria and Vietnam in three years from 2015 to 2017 reached an average annual growth rate of 36.49 per cent, up from $233.18m in 2015 to $433.53m in 2017.
He said, “Vietnam is ready to do business with Nigeria and to further grow the long standing cordial relationships between the two countries.
“A number of cooperation agreements have also been signed to boost socio-economic relations between the governments and private entrepreneurs of the two countries while others are being negotiated.
“Vietnam exports 52 items to Nigeria, including textiles, household goods, rice, seafood, batteries, confectionery and others, while imports from Nigeria are mainly woods and cashew nuts.
“However, Nigeria remains the largest market in Africa and therefore has a great demand for a lot of commodities every year and many of them are sourced indirectly from Vietnam.”
He remarked that before 1986, Vietnam was an underdeveloped, poor, hungry country that had to import one million tonnes of rice every year.
He said, “Due to the reform policy of our government, Vietnam has become the third largest rice exporter in the world with 5.8 million tonnes exported annually. The total export and import value of goods of Vietnam with the world in 2017 reached $425bn. $214bn in export and $211bn in import. Our export surplus was about $3bn.”