The Federal Government recorded a revenue shortfall of N5.8tn from non-oil exports between December 2017 to December 2020 as against its N12.3tn ($30bn) target for its zero-oil plan.
In the fourth quarter 2016, the Nigerian Promotion Council conceived the Zero Oil Plan (a core component of the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan) to increase the contribution of non-oil exports to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product by 20 per cent.
According the NEPC 2016 annual report, the focus of the plan is to ‘generate at least a minimum of 40 – 50 per cent of Nigeria earnings from non-oil export’.
Among other things, the report disclosed that the plan was expected to grow non-oil foreign exchange to $30bn by 2020.
The $30bn was to be generated from 11 strategic export products – such as petrochemicals, palm oil, cocoa, soybeans, rubber – with high financial value to replace oil.
The report read, “The Nigerian Export Promotion Council launched the Zero Oil Plan, a medium and long term strategy aimed at diversifying the economy from oil. Zero Oil Plan has become a key component of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
“The focus is to generate at least a minimum of 40 – 50 per cent of Nigeria earnings from non-oil export. The plan was presented to different states, development partners and donor agencies and has been widely accepted.
“The overall targets set for the zero oil plan include: to grow non-oil foreign exchange from $2.7bn base to $30bn by 2020.”
A breakdown of non-oil exports during the review period shows that in 2017, non-oil exports contributed N629.9bn or 4.6 per cent of the total export of N13.6tn.
