Nigeria imported a total of 132, 543 units of fully built units (FBU) of vehicles between January and June, this year.
Figures from the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have shown that a total of 132, 543 units of vehicles comprising brand new and used motor vehicles were handled at its roll-on-roll-off RoRo Port located in Lagos.
A six-month report released by the NPA indicated that a total of 1, 992 vessels laden with an aggregate gross registered tonnage GRT of 60.2 million metric tonnes and 849,175 TEUs-20 equivalent units of containers were handled at the nation’s major eight seaports within the six-month period.
Further details show that a total of 38.7million metric tonnes of bulk cargo were handled across all the seaport locations even as the 132, 543 units of vehicles comprising brand new and used motor vehicles were handled at its roll-on-roll-off RoRo Port in Lagos.
Average turn-around-time of the 1, 992 vessels that called at the ports within the review period stood at 5.16 days, an indication that the ports have recorded significant improvements in terms of efficiency.
A breakdown of revenue generated during the period showed that N50.3 billion represented cash remittances, the compulsory deduction of 25 per cent of revenue generated and other payments for January-June, this year. The balance related to the remittance for other periods.
Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko noted that in the face of global economic and inflation crises, among other negative factors, the half-year operational statistics were encouraging and these bolstered impressive remittances to the Federal Government.
“Global economic and inflation crises, global reduction in household incomes and purchasing power and scarcity of foreign exchange all of which has negatively affected business environment, affected government revenue and constrained expenditure.
“The development in the port industry cannot be severed from the macro-economic environment with galloping inflation that has grossly reduced the disposable income of the households, the depreciating exchange rates that stifle business environment and the dwindling government revenue that constrains expenditure.
“In the face of these harsh macro-economic indices, the NPA has forged on to deliver port and harbour services to the teeming operators in the export and import businesses across the country. These remittances are expressions of the operational performance of the ports,” Koko said.