Non-Oil Sectoral Export: Implications for Nigeria’s Economic Growth
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of Nigerian non-oil sectoral exports on its economic growth using a quarterly dataset obtained from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) (2022). The dataset covered the period from the first quarter of 2016 to the fourth quarter of 2021. While existing studies have used aggregated datasets of Nigeria’s non-oil exports, our study uses disaggregated datasets that distinguish the non-oil export into four categories: manufactured goods, agricultural goods, solid minerals, and raw materials. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, the study reveals that the short-run coefficients of all the non-oil sectors considered were negative and insignificant. Nevertheless, in the long-run, the coefficients were positive, with significance observed solely in the case of raw material goods exports. These findings indicate that, while non-oil exports may not immediately contribute to economic growth in the short-run, they do so in the long-run. The positive and significant long-run coefficient for raw material goods exports indicates that this sector was the sole substantial contributor to Nigerian economic growth during the period studied. Therefore, greater attention should be paid to promoting exports from other non-oil sectors, such as manufacturing, agriculture, and solid minerals, to fully realize their potential benefits in the economy. Achieving this objective requires restructuring Nigeria’s export framework to encompass a wider range of export destinations and value-added goods.
Keywords: Non-oil sectoral export, economic growth and ARDL
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