Despite the abundance of water bodies, Nigeria spent N30 billion importing fish into the country in the last quarter of 2020.
This is according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) obtained on Monday from Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics and Commodity Price Indices and Terms of Trade reports.
According to the reports, last year, Netherland sold to Nigeria N23 billion worth of fish and Russia N7 billion.
The types of fish imported into Nigeria the report showed included Herrings and Blue whitings.
Blue whitings and Herrings were imported from Netherland while just Herrings were received from Russia.
In 2019, in a briefing with state governors and the media, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele revealed that about $1.2 billion worth of fish is imported into Nigeria annually.
He disclosed that current fish production in the country stood at 0.8 million tons while the demand was 2.7 million tons, giving a deficit of 1.9 million tons.
However, the federal government has vowed to put an end to Fish importation in the country by next year.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono , made this promise in November last year during the 35th Annual Conference of the Fisheries Society of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s major export and import market in the fourth quarter of 2020 was India, Spain, the Netherlands, United States and China.
The major imports from the countries were motor spirits, used vehicles, motorcycles, and antibiotics while the major export include crude petroleum and natural gas.
The bureau also stated that the all-commodity group import index increased by 0.13 percent between October and December 2020.