Nigeria’s Exports to China Jump 81% After Tariffs End

NIGERIA · TRADE

Nigeria China trade reached US$17.4 billion in the first half of 2026, and Nigerian exports to China climbed 81% to US$2.25 billion. The surge followed Beijing’s decision on 1 May to scrap tariffs on goods from 53 African countries.

What the Nigeria China trade figures show

Nigerian exports to China reached US$2.25 billion between January and June, an increase of 81% on the same months of 2025. Total trade between the two countries came to US$17.4 billion, up 35%.

The numbers were given by Yan Yuqing, China’s Consul General in Lagos, at a new-energy and lighting expo in the city, as The Guardian Nigeria reported. She said monthly export growth passed 40% in both May and June.

Chinese direct investment in Nigeria rose 103% over the year to US$690 million, according to the same remarks. Full-year trade in 2025 had already exceeded US$28 billion.

Why Beijing dropped the tariffs

China removed duties on all tariff lines for products from the 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations, effective 1 May. The measure sits inside the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation action plan for 2025 to 2027, as the Chinese consulate in Lagos explained when the policy began.

Beijing has framed the decision as a way to widen market access for African goods rather than a concession on any single commodity. It arrived at the start of China’s fifteenth five-year plan period.

For Nigeria the timing matters, because the country has spent three years trying to earn more foreign exchange from goods other than crude oil. Yan named sesame, yam, cassava and palm wine as products with room to grow.

The part of the picture that is missing

The consul general did not separate oil from everything else, which is the single most important detail for judging whether this is a genuine diversification story. Crude and gas have long made up the great bulk of what Nigeria sells to China.

The figures are Chinese statistics as relayed by a Chinese official. Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics has not published matching numbers, and the Chinese embassy has acknowledged that the two countries’ records differ because of methodology, as Punch reported.

Timing also deserves care. The 81% compares full half-years, so part of the rise came before the tariff cut began in May, and the figures are best read as an official Chinese account rather than as audited trade data.

A pattern Latin American readers will recognise

The shape of this trade is familiar across the South Atlantic. Brazil, Chile and Peru have all watched Chinese demand lift a narrow band of commodity exports while manufactured imports flow the other way.

Nigeria runs a substantial deficit with China, since the US$17.4 billion total dwarfs the US$2.25 billion it sells. The consul general described Nigeria as China’s largest engineering contracting market in Africa and its second-largest trading partner on the continent.

That combination, preferential access for raw goods alongside deep contracting ties, is the arrangement Latin American governments have spent a decade trying to renegotiate. The lesson from the region is that tariff access alone rarely changes what a country actually sells.

How the policy works in practice

Duty-free access removes a cost, but it does not build a supply chain. An exporter still needs volume, packaging that survives the journey, and paperwork that satisfies Chinese inspectors.

That is why the early winners tend to be traders who already ship to Asia rather than smallholders. The gains concentrate among firms with existing logistics before they spread more widely.

Nigeria’s agricultural exporters have also faced repeated rejections over aflatoxin levels and pesticide residues in recent years. Meeting Chinese standards consistently is a slower project than removing a tariff line.

The policy covers 53 countries, so Nigerian sesame competes with Ethiopian and Sudanese sesame on identical terms. Preference shared with the whole continent is not preference over the continent.

What to watch next

The test is whether agricultural exporters can meet Chinese certification and volume requirements, which is where earlier African efforts have stalled. Sesame and cassava need scale and consistent quality to move beyond pilot shipments.

The second test is data. If Chinese customs releases confirm the trend when full-year figures appear, the policy will look genuinely significant.

Until then the solid claim is the narrow one. Duty-free access is now in place, and one senior Chinese official says Nigerian shipments responded quickly.

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