Nigeria’s ports handle massive trade volumes, with the country’s total foreign trade value reaching a historic N138.03 trillion in 2024, more than double the previous year’s figurelegit.ng. Robust export growth (notably in oil) pushed exports to N77.44 trillion against N60.59 trillion in imports, giving Nigeria a trade surplus of N16.85 trillion, the highest in 17 years.
This surge in trade underscores Nigeria’s increasing integration into the global economy. The top 10 trading partners alone accounted for about N89.47 trillion (64.8%) of the total trade value. European nations led as a bloc with N56.94 trillion of trade, followed by Asian countries at N49.76 trillion (driven largely by India and China), while trade with the Americas contributed N19.70 trillion, mainly through exports to the U.S. and Canada nairametrics.com. Such volumes mean vast sums of money are flowing between Nigerian businesses and their foreign counterparts. Below is a breakdown of Nigeria’s top ten foreign trade partners in 2024, and afterward we will explore how Nigerian businesses can streamline their financial operations amid these booming cross-border transactions.
Top 10 Foreign Trade Partners in 2024
10. Germany (Europe) – N2.95 trillion total trade. Exports: N1.68 trillion, Imports: N1.26 trillion (yielding a surplus of N419.3 billion). Key Nigerian exports to Germany included petroleum oils and cocoa products, while major imports from Germany were automobiles, plastic materials, and processed food (cereal preparations).
9. Canada (Americas) – N4.54 trillion total trade. Nigeria’s trade with Canada was N4.54 trillion, of which exports made up N4.23 trillion and imports N315.4 billion, leaving a large surplus of about N3.91 trillion in Nigeria’s favor. Nigeria mainly exported mineral fuels, oils, and fertilizers to Canada, and in return imported commodities like wheat and automobiles.
8. Italy (Europe) – N4.93 trillion total trade. Bilateral trade with Italy reached N4.93 trillion in 2024. Nigeria exported roughly N2.06 trillion worth of goods to Italy and imported about N542.9 billion, resulting in a N1.52 trillion surplus. Nigerian crude oil and precious metal scraps were among the chief exports, whereas imports from Italy consisted largely of refined petroleum products and industrial machinery
7. France (Europe) – N8.61 trillion total trade. Nigeria’s trade volume with France was N8.61 trillion, with exports at N6.96 trillion and imports at N1.66 trillion. This gave Nigeria a healthy surplus of about N5.30 trillion. Top exports to France included petroleum oils, natural gas, and even agricultural produce like frozen shrimp, while imports from France were more modest and featured items such as refined petroleum and other industrial goods.
6. Netherlands (Europe) – N9.24 trillion total trade. Trade with the Netherlands totaled N9.24 trillion. Nigeria exported N6.93 trillion worth of goods to the Netherlands and imported N2.31 trillion, resulting in a N4.62 trillion trade surplus. Key exports were petroleum oils and cocoa products, whereas Nigeria’s imports from the Netherlands included gas oil (a type of diesel) and pharmaceutical products like medicines.
5. United States (Americas) – N9.59 trillion total trade. The U.S. is Nigeria’s largest trading partner in the Americas, with N9.589 trillion in trade value. Nigerian exports to the U.S. were about N5.52 trillion (including crude petroleum, natural gas, urea, refined metals, flours and soybeans), while imports from the U.S. were around N4.07 trillion (notably refined butane gas, used vehicles, premium motor spirit fuel, industrial alcohol, etc.). Nigeria thus enjoyed a trade surplus of roughly N1.45 trillion with the United States in 2024.
4. Spain (Europe) – N9.595 trillion total trade. Spain was a major purchaser of Nigerian exports, with total trade at about N9.595 trillion. Nigeria exported approximately N8.13 trillion in goods to Spain, primarily crude oil, petroleum gases, goat leather, cocoa beans and related petroleum products, while imports from Spain were only N1.47 trillion. This imbalance produced one of Nigeria’s largest bilateral surpluses, about N6.66 trillion, in 2024.
3. All African countries (Africa combined) – N10.89 trillion total trade. Not a single country, but collectively Africa was Nigeria’s third-largest trading “partner.” Intra-African trade involving Nigeria summed up to N10.89 trillion, with Nigeria exporting N8.74 trillion to other African nations and importing N2.16 trillion. This intra-continental trade yielded a surplus of N6.58 trillion for Nigeria. Regional trade was boosted by policy developments for instance, the reopening of the Nigeria–Niger land border and the implementation of the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) Guided Trade Initiative, which have both helped increase trade flows within Africa.
2. India (Asia) – N11.97 trillion total trade. India was Nigeria’s second-largest trading partner globally. Total Nigeria–India trade reached N11.97 trillion in 2024. The trade was nearly balanced: Nigeria’s exports to India were about N6.18 trillion, while imports from India were around N5.79 trillion resulting in a small deficit of roughly N390 billion on Nigeria’s side. Nigeria’s major exports to India included petroleum oils, natural gas, and agricultural products like cashew nuts, whereas key imports from India were refined fuels (such as gas oil), motorcycles, and pharmaceutical products.
1. China (Asia) – N17.14 trillion total trade. China was Nigeria’s #1 trading partner in 2024 by a wide margin, with bilateral trade totaling N17.14 trillion. However, Nigeria ran a very large trade deficit with China. Out of that total, Nigeria’s exports to China were only N2.99 trillion, while imports from China were a whopping N14.15 trillion. This means an N11.15 trillion deficit for Nigeria by far the biggest gap among its partners. China mainly sold Nigeria a broad range of manufactured goods including electronics (phones), appliances (air conditioners), agro-chemicals (insecticides and herbicides), machinery (e.g. rotary pumps), and other industrial and consumer products. In return, Nigeria’s exports to China were composed mostly of mineral resources, metals, and some agricultural/vegetable products.
(Source: National Bureau of Statistics data as reported by Nairametricsnairametrics.comnairametrics.com.)
Automating Financial Operations Amid Surging Trade
With so much money flowing between Nigerian businesses and overseas partners, these trade figures are not just abstract macroeconomic data, they reflect real transactions handled by Nigerian companies, from large oil exporters to small importers of machinery. Managing the financial operations behind these transactions can be complex. Businesses must deal with multi-currency payments, invoicing, cross-border fund transfers, compliance documentation, and the challenge of tracking a high volume of payables and receivables. For many firms in Nigeria and other emerging markets, manual processes and fragmented systems remain the norm, which struggles to keep up with the growing scale and velocity of trade.
In fact, across Africa, the collection and reconciliation of payments is often highly fragmented. Customers pay through cash, bank transfers, mobile money, and other channels, making it laborious for companies to consolidate their financial records. According to a Mastercard study, 95% of consumer and business payments in Africa still occur in cash, highlighting how prevalent offline transactions remain. As a result, finance teams frequently resort to manual work: roughly 40% of transactions require manual intervention to reconcile in the typical African company’s books. This manual, error-prone approach leads to issues like unreconciled accounts, leakages (missing funds or fraud), and inefficient use of cash. It also causes delays in cash flow visibility, businesses might not know which customer has paid or which vendor invoice is due without time-consuming checks.
Crucially, disorganized or delayed financial record-keeping can hold businesses back from accessing much-needed capital. Poor finance operations reduce the overall creditworthiness of African businesses and hamper their growth prospects. Lenders and investors need to see reliable financial statements, payment histories, and evidence of prudent cash management. Yet many Nigerian SMEs lack formal accounting records and standardized documentation. As one fintech CEO observed regarding informality among SMEs: “They don’t have records, they don’t have things to ensure that the banks can even meet basic KYC requirements, and as a result they’re not able to access credit.” In other words, if a business cannot present clean books and verifiable transaction data, banks simply will not lend to them. Encouraging proper record-keeping and financial transparency is therefore critical, it forms the foundation of access to finance. Standardized documentation and accurate records are “the building blocks of a viable credit profile, which in turn improves access to credit.”
Digital automation offers a way out of this dilemma. Industry analysts note that technology and automation can streamline finance operations for African businesses, addressing pain points in payments and accounting. In recent years, a wave of B2B fintech platforms has emerged to serve as the “Office of the CFO” for companies essentially automating many tasks that financial departments handle manually today. These solutions go beyond basic online banking; they help businesses automate accounts payable and receivable processes, expense tracking, invoice reconciliation, cashflow forecasting, and even FX management and working-capital optimization. By digitizing these workflows, companies can significantly reduce errors and processing time. For example, instead of an accountant poring over bank statements and invoices to reconcile payments, an automated system can instantly match incoming payments to the correct invoices and flag any exceptions for review.
Modern AI-powered finance tools are taking this further by introducing intelligent “agents” that can learn and perform accounting tasks. Rather than simply automating a single step, AI agents can handle end-to-end processes. For instance, an AI-based Reconciliation Agent can automatically match transactions across multiple accounts or data sources and reconcile them, only alerting the human team when something doesn’t line up. A Journal Entry Agent can even prepare and post accounting entries directly into the company’s ERP system once you’ve trained it with the rules, essentially doing the heavy lifting of bookkeeping in the background. These agents are capable of pulling data from different software platforms and standardizing it. In fact, AI systems can take data from multiple ERPs or source systems and convert it into a unified format for analysis. This means a business could connect its ERP, CRM, and accounting software together via an AI-driven middleware that continuously syncs all the payables and receivables data across the board.
By integrating financial data across all systems, a company gains a real-time, 360° view of its finances, sales from the CRM, invoices and bills from the ERP, and payments from banking platforms all come together automatically. No more gaps between what the sales team records and what the finance team sees; every transaction is logged and updated instantly. This level of automation yields tangible benefits: errors and omissions in the books are drastically reduced as the AI cross-checks data and flags inconsistencies immediately. Routine tasks (data entry, invoice matching, payment scheduling) that used to consume staff hours are handled by the software, freeing up finance teams to focus on strategy and analysis. Critically, the financial records become timely and audit-ready, a source of truth that managers, auditors, or potential lenders can trust.
For Nigerian businesses, adopting these kinds of fintech solutions can directly improve access to capital. When accounting is automated and accurate, even a mid-sized company can quickly generate up-to-date financial statements, cash flow reports, and receivables aging schedules at the click of a button. Such information is exactly what banks or investors require during credit evaluations. A company that demonstrates transparency and control in its finances is far more likely to secure loans or attract investment, because it can prove its revenue streams and repayment capacity with data. Essentially, digital finance platforms help SMEs and large firms alike build the credible financial profile that was previously missing. As regulatory initiatives like open banking in Nigeria mature (making it easier to share financial data securely), having your transactions digitized will become even more advantageous for accessing services and capital.
It’s no surprise, then, that fintech innovators are stepping in to link these opportunities. Some platforms initially helped businesses with just payouts and cross-border payments, given the growth in trade activity. Now they are going further, leveraging AI and automation to handle the accounting side of those transactions as well. For example, instead of simply executing international payments for a Nigerian importer, an advanced platform can now also auto-categorize that payment in the company’s books, sync the entry with the inventory or procurement system, and update the company’s balance sheet in real time. By going beyond payouts to full financial workflow automation, these solutions enable businesses to keep their ledgers up-to-date without manual toil. All payables and receivables can be synchronized across the ERP (for resource planning), the CRM (for customer billing info), and the accounting ledgers continuously.
The end result is that Nigerian businesses engaging in high-volume trade can operate with much greater efficiency and financial insight. They can track who owes what at a glance, send out invoices or pay suppliers on schedule with minimal human intervention, and manage multi-currency transactions with automatically applied exchange rates. Importantly, their financial records become a living, accurate reflection of the business at any given moment. When such a business needs extra capital say, a bank loan to purchase more raw materials or a line of credit to cover a large order, it can readily present reliable financial statements and even share real-time dashboards of receivables and cash flows. This instills confidence in lenders. As one report noted, when small firms start thinking and operating “as a business” with proper records and compliance (tax IDs, audited statements, etc.), it builds a viable credit profile and improves access to credit. In essence, automation turns previously opaque, cash-based operations into transparent, bankable enterprises.
Conclusion:
Nigeria’s booming foreign trade presents enormous opportunities for growth, but it also places greater demands on the financial infrastructure of businesses. By embracing modern finance automation from basic accounting software to AI-driven accounting agents. Nigerian companies can handle the flood of transactions more effectively and position themselves for expansion. Streamlined financial operations mean not only fewer headaches in day-to-day management, but also stronger trust from financial institutions. A company that knows its numbers and controls its cash flows is far better equipped to obtain the capital it needs to seize new trade opportunities. In short, automating financial operations is fast becoming a necessary step for Nigerian businesses to fully capitalize on the global markets they are tapping into, ensuring that record trade volumes translate into sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
