Nigeria’s foreign inflow declines by 61% in H1 2021

Nigeria’s foreign inflows have declined by 61 percent from $7.15 billion received in the first half of 2020 to $2.78 billion in the first half of 2021, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Nigeria’s foreign inflow has dwindled in recent times, attributable to a number of factors, which cut across insecurity, economic downturn, ease of doing business, unfavourable policies amongst others.

According to the report, foreign direct investments stood at $232.74 million as against $362.84 million recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Foreign portfolio investment (FPI) stood at $1.53 billion, way lower than the $4.69 billion recorded in the first half of 2020, while other investments stood at $1.02 billion in the review period.

A cursory look at the report showed that Nigeria’s foreign inflow has dropped significantly in the past two years, dropping to its lowest level in the past four years. The last time Nigeria imported capital lower than this period was in the first half of 2017 when a sum of $2.7 billion was recorded as foreign inflows.

The largest inflow during the period was through portfolio investments which stood at $1.53 billion, accounting for 54.8 percent of the total capital inflows in the first of 2021, followed by other investments ($1.02 billion), representing 36.8 percent of the total.

The banking sector received the highest foreign inflows in the review period of $1 billion, accounting for 36 percent of the total inflows. Shares followed closely with $901.3 million representing 32.4 percent of the aggregate recorded.