The Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nonye Ayeni, has disclosed that Nigeria’s non-oil exports recorded an all-time high of $6.1 billion in 2025, representing an 11.5 per cent increase over the $5.46 billion achieved in 2024.
Ayeni made this known during a press briefing on the performance of non-oil exports for the 2025–2026 period in Abuja. She said the figure represents the highest non-oil export value ever recorded in Nigeria for formally documented trade since the establishment of the council.
According to her, the milestone surpasses NEPC’s previous records and underscores the growing resilience and increasing relevance of the non-oil export sector to Nigeria’s economy.
Ayeni reaffirmed the council’s commitment to recalibrating and re-strategising its operations to achieve even stronger performance, noting that Nigeria has once again surpassed its own export record. She recalled that the country also recorded its highest non-oil export value in 2024 and sustained the momentum in 2025.
She attributed the strong performance to the effectiveness of NEPC’s “Double Your Export” mantra and the initiatives implemented under the programme, describing the results as encouraging.
The NEPC boss, however, noted that the reported figures do not fully capture Nigeria’s export activities, as a significant volume of goods still exits the country through informal trade routes. She said the council is collaborating with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other stakeholders to properly mainstream informal trade into official records.
In terms of volume, Ayeni disclosed that total non-oil exports stood at 8.02 million metric tonnes, representing a 10 per cent increase from the 7.29 million metric tonnes recorded in the previous year. She said the growth in both value and volume reflects improved export activities across multiple value chains and market destinations.
She added that Nigeria exported 281 non-oil products in 2025, spanning agricultural commodities, processed and semi-processed goods, industrial inputs and solid minerals, signalling gradual progress in value addition and product diversification.
Ayeni further revealed that Nigeria’s non-oil exports reached 120 countries globally, with the Netherlands accounting for 17.53 per cent, Brazil 10.35 per cent, and India 7.63 per cent of total export value, making them the top three destinations.
She noted that exports to the Netherlands increased by 32.46 per cent, driven by products such as cocoa beans, cocoa butter and sesame seeds, while exports to Brazil rose by 19.07 per cent during the period.