Results of bilateral trade between Nigeria and Japan reached $4.5 billion in 2014. This was made known by Taku Miyazuki, Japan’s trade commissioner to Nigeria and Managing Director of the Lagos office of Japan’s External Trade Organisation.
Miyazuki said Japan’s exports to Nigeria comprised mainly machinery, steel products and vehicles, while Nigeria’s exports to Japan comprised mainly natural gas and sesame seeds. He said Japanese firms are keen on expanding their investments in Nigeria, now Africa’s largest economy.
“Some of them have already invested in this country and started producing. A motorcycle manufacturing company just started assembling its motorcycles in Lagos State late October this year,”
Nigeria-Japan trade volume has been steadily rising since 2011 after a tsunami, caused by a 9.0-magnitude Tohoku earthquake, flooded a nuclear power plant at Fukushima Dai-ichi. As a result of this disaster, Japanese authorities shut all nuclear plants in the country and began replacing nuclear electricity generation with imported fossil fuels, mainly natural gas and coal. Japan is the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas, according to the trade organization, International Gas Union.
It might interest you to know that bilateral trade between Nigeria and Japan falls behind Nigerian trade relationships with other Asian superpowers. Nigeria-China trade currently stands at $18 billion while Nigeria-India trade stands at $17 billion.
