Nigeria's Exports to China Jump 81% to $2.25bn on Tariff Relief

Nigeria shipped 81% more goods to China in the first half of 2026 than a year earlier, sending $2.25 billion of exports across the lane as Beijing's tariff exemptions took hold. Bilateral trade between the two countries climbed 35% year on year to $17.4 billion over the same six months.

Yang Jianxing, director of the China Cultural Centre in Nigeria, disclosed the figures in Abuja at the launch of the Mandarin Service of the Voice of Nigeria and a ceremony for the China-Nigeria Bridge Chinese radio programme.

"Nigeria's performance has been particularly impressive. In the first half of this year, bilateral trade between China and Nigeria reached 17.4 billion US dollars, up 35 percent year on year," Yang said. "China's imports from Nigeria amounted to 2.25 billion US dollars, representing a remarkable increase of 81 percent."

What is driving the surge?

A single policy move sits behind much of the acceleration. China scrapped import duties on goods from 53 African countries, Nigeria included, and the effect is visible in the numbers. The tariff removal lifted Africa's total exports to China by an estimated 6% in the first half of 2026.

The wider continental picture is record-breaking. China-Africa trade reached $207.4 billion in the first half of 2026 — the highest figure ever recorded for that period. African seafood, textile materials and speciality fruit shipments to China each grew by more than 10%.

For Nigerian shippers and forwarders, the implication is straightforward: the duty-free window has widened access to the Chinese market, and demand is following. Yang said Nigerian businesses could capitalise on growing Chinese appetite by sending more agricultural products, raw materials and other specialised goods.

How fast is the lane accelerating?

The monthly data tightens the story. Nigerian export shipments grew by more than 40% year on year in both May and June, according to Yang — a pace that, if sustained, would roughly double the lane's export flow within two years.

Even so, a caveat belongs beside every promise here. The headline 81% export growth starts from a low base: $2.25 billion of exports against $15 billion-plus flowing the other way. Nigeria remains, by a wide margin, the smaller trading partner, and one strong half-year does not settle the structural imbalance on the lane.

All figures also come from a Chinese cultural official speaking at a promotional event, not from a joint customs release. The numbers are plausible against the record $207.4 billion continental total, but independent Nigerian trade data has not yet confirmed them.

What did the policy backdrop reveal?

Beyond trade, Yang outlined China's positioning on two fronts that shape the commercial environment for the lane.

On mining, he said China wants partnerships that recognise each African country's right to control its mineral resources, deliver benefits to both sides and leave room for fair competition and investment — language that speaks directly to African governments pushing for greater local value capture in raw-material supply chains.

On security, Yang said President Xi Jinping had set out four principles for resolving conflicts across the continent:

• African countries should lead the resolution of their own conflicts;
• all sides must be treated fairly;
• efforts should work toward ending violence and finding peaceful solutions;
• both immediate causes of conflict and the underlying problems behind them must be tackled.

Yang added that China supports Africa's right to decide for itself what kind of development it pursues.

What comes next for the lane?

The trajectory for shippers depends on whether the second half of 2026 matches the first. If the May-June pace of 40%-plus export growth holds, Nigerian agricultural and raw-material volumes on the China lane will keep climbing, and carriers will need capacity — reefer slots for perishables and bulk breaks for minerals — to match it. For now, duty-free access gives the lane a policy floor that was absent a year ago; whether Nigerian exporters can scale supply to meet Chinese demand is the open question the next data release will have to answer.