Nigeria, others enjoy duty free trade when exporting to UK

The British government has launched the Trade Scheme for Developing Countries (DCTS) in Nigeria.

The DCTS offers one of the most generous sets of trade preferences in the world and demonstrates the UK’s commitment to building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with countries such as Nigeria.

Launched in Lagos, the DCTS is due to come into effect in spring 2023, replacing the UK’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences (SAP).

It is expected that 65 countries will benefit, 37 of which will be African, and Nigeria will benefit from duty-free trade on more than 9,200 products.

This would be significantly more generous than both the EU’s GSP and the United States’ AGOA scheme and, based on current trade volumes, would mean that 99 percent of goods exports to the UK would be duty-free.

Ben Llewellyn-Jones, UK Deputy High Commissioner to the UK in Lagos, said at the launch: “Nigeria is one of the UK’s most important partners in Africa and the UK Government is committed to working with Nigerian companies and exporters to trade between our two great nations.

“The UK developing country trade scheme harnesses the power of trade to help Nigeria and other emerging economies grow and prosper.

“A major benefit of this new British trading system is that it removes tariffs on more than 3,000 everyday commodities that Nigeria currently exports, including cocoa, cotton, plantain, flowers, fertiliser, tomatoes, frozen prawns and sesame. The overarching goal of the new scheme is to promote free and fair trade with developing countries, boosting the economy and supporting jobs in those countries, as well as in ours.”

The work was part of a wider UK push to push a global agenda for free trade and growth, using trade to boost prosperity and eradicate poverty.

Llewellyn-Jones also revealed that the total volume of trade between the UK and Nigeria will reach £5.5 billion by 2022. He said that out of the £5.5 billion, total UK exports to Nigeria amounted to £3.3 billion, while the total UK imports from Nigeria amounted to £2.2 billion in the four quarters of 2022. He also stated that most of the commodities traded between the two countries were oil and gas.

He explained that the UK is very keen to diversify into other sectors and would like to work with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) in that regard.

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