Market News

 by Yusuf Babalola

Cargo importation has surged by 50 per cent into the nation’s seaports in 2025, due to the stability of the naira against the United States dollar and lower inflation rates, LEADERSHIP  reports.

Speaking over the weekend, the Shipping Association of Nigeria (SAN) attributed the increase to the stability of the currency and other factors that are driving and improving the nation’s economy.

The chairman of SAN, Boma Alabi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, while addressing journalists, stated that 2025 has been a better year than 2024 in terms of trade volume in the maritime sector.

“We have seen an increase in volume of trade, both coming in and going out, which shows that, I think, it is because of the stability of the currency and other factors, that the economy is improving. Obviously, we are coming from a very long way. So although we’re seeing an improvement, we still have a very long way to go.

“Giving the percentage of the increase in volume of trade, I would say at least 40 to 50 per cent. Just by general observation of the number of vessels that are calling into our ports, and also leaving with cargoes from our ports. So as usual, we have several agencies that we have to interface with,” she said.

However, she emphasised that the efficiency of the industry relies on the efficiency of those agencies, adding that in the countries where they work efficiently, people find that the port is also efficient while ships can call in and leave very quickly.

And in so doing, she added that it reduces the costs for the importers and the exporters, which goes on to reduce costs for manufacturers and consumers generally.

“Efficiency of these agencies is key. For instance, if Customs is not operating at optimum, that immediately impacts how quickly you can clear your goods both coming in and going out. I know the government has tried to automate the operations. They have this B’Odogwu.

“B’Odogwu caused mayhem to begin with, because it was not working properly, a lot of downtime, and no other option. And that impacted both goods coming in and going out. Manufacturers who were expecting raw materials for production were waiting six to eight weeks, almost two months.

“And that in turn means that their factories were not able to produce some of the things that they were producing because of a lack of some of those raw materials. It is now a bit more efficient. But again, lessons learned,” she explained.

She urged that there is always a need to test run some of the technologies before rolling them out, saying that, unfortunately, these government agencies don’t think from a commercial perspective.

She said they just roll things out, and then the industry is impacted negatively because they have not taken the time to test-run it properly before rolling it out.

She called on the government agencies to up their game to make the nation’s ports more efficient for investors, saying there is a need to invest in port infrastructure across the nation.