23 - TRADE POLICIES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This chapter describes trade policies in Nigeria. Nigeria actively sought to loosen its trade ties with the United Kingdom after independence. New trade agreements were sought and signed with new trading partners including Japan and countries within the East European bloc, such that the importation of goods from them no longer required specific import licenses as had been the practice prior to independence. Consequently, imports from Japan, for example, rose from 3.9% of total imports in 1949 to 12.9% in 1960. The use of tariffs as an instrument of trade policy gradually evolved through three stages. It was found that until 1953, they served primarily as an instrument for generating revenue for the colonial government. Between 1953 and 1967, they were aimed at two major objectives that include revenue generation and the effecting of balance-of-payments adjustments. The introduction of multiple tariff rates in 1967 marked the beginning of a series of attempts to utilize tariffs as an instrument of industrial policy. The pursuit of an import-substitution industrialization strategy, which was to rely on tariff and non-tariff barriers, was later to encourage the maintenance of complex and restrictive trade regimes.