Nigeria

In progress

The challenge

Traders moving goods across Nigeria’s borders often have to provide the same information numerous times to different border agencies, increasing the administrative burden of cross-border trade as well as the scope for errors. What is more, they can face multiple physical inspections of their goods by those different agencies, causing significant delays to shipments at the border.

Comprehensive documentation and inspections are a vital part of ensuring traders comply with regulations and fees and that consumers of imported and exported goods are kept safe. But they also make trade more time consuming and costly for both border agencies and businesses. In fact, the costs associated with import and export documentation in Nigeria are among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

What we are doing

The Alliance brought together the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, businesses and terminal operators, to identify six sectors where trade is key to Nigeria’s economic growth and diversification—exports of processed leather, edible fruits and chemicals, and imports of pharmaceuticals, electronics and industrial spare parts.

We are working with Nigerian government partners, businesses and associations to identify the processes that are causing delays, devise ways to simplify them, train border agency staff and support the roll out of improved processes. The project started with air cargo at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, before moving on to sea freight at the Lagos Port, taking lessons learned from our work at the airport and potentially broadening the scope to additional sectors.

Local businesses play a crucial role, advising on how the processes are working in reality, proposing solutions and providing data to help measure results. Global companies are supporting the project by providing expertise and insights into international best practices.

The target result

The project aims to reduce the average time and cost associated with documentary compliance for exports and imports. Once the specific processes that will be simplified are selected, the project team will collect baseline data and set target reductions at both the airport and port.

The potential impact

Reducing the time and cost of trade can create a better business environment in Nigeria and unlock inclusive economic growth that benefits the government, businesses and consumers alike.

In the longer term, simpler and more cost-effective trade can make Nigerian businesses in key sectors such as manufacturing more internationally competitive, helping local small businesses to grow and increasing employment.

Simpler processes and more transparency can also increase levels of trade compliance and support revenue collection for border agencies.

The project is establishing a culture of regular meetings and cooperation between Nigeria’s various border agencies and putting in place a strong mechanism for business to play a part in driving reforms. In this way, it lays a solid foundation for future public private collaboration that can create a better trading environment.

Project Structure