NIGERIA’s non-oil exports climbed to a historic high of $6.1 billion in 2025, according to the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC).

The latest figure represents an 11.5 percent rise from the $5.4 billion achieved in 2024, underscoring continued growth in the country’s non-oil export segment.

Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the NEPC, Ms Nonye Ayeni, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while presenting the council’s annual performance report alongside its 2026 non-oil export outlook.

Ms Ayeni explained that data compiled from pre-shipment inspection agencies showed that the 2025 outcome was the strongest non-oil export performance ever recorded in Nigeria’s history of formal and documented trade, and the highest since the council was established nearly five decades ago.

She noted that the sector’s export value rose to about $6.1 billion in 2025, reflecting year-on-year growth of roughly 11.5 percent compared with the previous year’s performance.

According to her, this achievement surpassed all prior records and confirms sustained improvement in Nigeria’s non-oil export activities.

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In terms of volume, Ms Ayeni said non-oil exports reached 8.02 million metric tonnes in 2025, up from 7.29 million metric tonnes in 2024, representing a 10 percent increase.

She attributed the expansion in both volume and value to stronger export operations across several value chains as well as increased penetration of diverse international markets.

Ms Ayeni disclosed that Nigeria exported a total of 281 non-oil products during the year, ranging from agricultural produce to processed and semi-processed goods, industrial inputs, and solid minerals.

She said the breadth of exported products signaled growing value addition and deeper diversification of Nigeria’s export basket in the global marketplace.

The NEPC boss further revealed that Nigerian non-oil exports were shipped to 120 countries in 2025. The Netherlands emerged as the largest destination, accounting for 17.53 percent of total exports, followed by Brazil with 10.35 percent and India with 7.63 percent.

Within the African region, Ms Ayeni said Nigeria exported non-oil products to 11 ECOWAS member states. These exports amounted to about 1.23 million metric tonnes valued at $272 million, reflecting a 4.6 percent decline in total exports to the sub-region.

She attributed the drop to the exit of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from the ECOWAS bloc.

Despite the record performance, Ms Ayeni cautioned that the figures still fell short of Nigeria’s true export capacity, noting that substantial volumes of trade continued to take place informally, particularly across land borders.

She said the council was collaborating with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and other stakeholders to capture informal cross-border trade in official export data.

Looking to the future, Ms Ayeni expressed confidence in a stronger outlook for 2026, projecting continued growth in both export value and volume.

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She said the NEPC would prioritise capacity building through training and education programmes to better equip Nigerian exporters with the skills and tools needed to compete effectively in global markets.

Ayeni added that the council planned to deepen partnerships with relevant agencies and development partners, while scaling up sensitisation and awareness initiatives to sustain momentum in the non-oil export sector.

Non-oil exporters earned $3.23 billion between January and June this year, from $1.59 billion in 2021. Analysis shows that they earned non-oil exporters earned $2.6 billion in 2022, $2.52 billion in 2023, $2.69 billion in 2024 and $3.23 billion in 2025.

“Devaaluation is helping to shore up the value of the exporters in naira terms,” said Chief Executive Officer of Lagos-based Skylas Exports. “Apart from the naira, there is now more consciousness to add value to whatever we plan to export. When you add value, the vaue of your product rises and, of course, earnings also increase.”>