By Merit Ibe
Amid shifting global trade dynamics, China’s decision to offer Nigeria and other African nations full duty-free access to its expansive consumer market is poised to redefine trade relations between the continent and Asia’s largest economy.
However, experts warn that Nigeria may fall short of reaping the full benefits of this opportunity unless it significantly boosts its production capacity and improves product quality to meet international standards.
President Xi Jinping recently disclosed to African foreign ministers that the new trade initiative will extend zero-tariff treatment to 100 percent of tariff lines for all African countries maintaining diplomatic ties with Beijing.
China’s turn to Africa signals a strategic bid to strengthen economic alliances and buffer against the ongoing fallout from its rivalry with America.
Already, Chinese exports to Africa have surged by 12.4 percent in the first five months of 2025, reaching a record 963 billion yuan ($134 billion), according to China’s Foreign Ministry.
If implemented, the zero-tariff regime will allow nearly all Nigerian goods, including agricultural products, textiles, solid minerals, and manufactured items, to enter China duty-free.
This presents a major opportunity for Nigeria in a highly competitive global trade environment where access to major markets is often limited.
Despite the huge offer, experts have argued that the open-arm invitation by China might not be as easy as it looks, given the weak structure on ground.
They view that Nigeria is not well positioned to explore the opportunity, pointing to the uncompetitive nature of our goods and the need to deliberately build capacity to meet up with the demand.
According to them, the country is not yet cost-effective in production, which is going to make the products less competitive due to low quality.
With a weak currency, they believe that this is a better opportunity to export and strengthen the naira.
President, Calabar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, David Etim, welcomed the development but expressed doubt if Nigeria is positioned to explore the opportunity, going by the uncompetitiveness of our products.
“The point is that China wants to drive its exports and create, theoretically, opportunities for African entrepreneurs to access their market—this, the non-tariff barriers set for Africa to thrive.
“There are several issues here. It is a very good thing, but it’s the technicalities of the process that will really define how this alliance will happen.
“The potential for Nigerian entrepreneurs is huge. China is a 1.3–1.4 billion people market, however, to access that market you must produce qualitative goods.
You cannot send substandard goods to China.
China may send substandard goods to any nation on request.
When China produces substandard in China, it will be written ‘strictly for export.’
You cannot take it into the Chinese market.
“So, if Nigeria or any African country wants to access the Chinese market, they must be ready to produce quality standard.
The reason why China can produce for the world is because it produces standard quality.
“So if we want to access their markets, whether it is for primary agricultural produce, for finished goods, they must be of standard.
“You cannot send them polluted goods. You cannot export beans with weevils—it will not enter that country; they will block you.
“China has zero tolerance for corruption.
“We have to step up our game, and to me, the Chinese market is something that China is driving because they want to connect their shipping to Africa.
“For you to export to China, there must be means of logistics of transportation.
All the logistics transportation going to China are Chinese shipping lines.”
He noted that Nigeria needs to look inward, develop capacity to be able to produce effectively, and meet up with the high standard in China.
“China produces virtually everything and exports everything. By the time you want to ship, maybe, cocoa from Nigeria to China, the cost will be high due to distance. Cocoa is being produced in Malaysia and in South Pacific nations.
The logistic cost between those nations and China is cheaper due to the short distance compared to Nigeria or Africa.
China produces palm oil, so if you want to export from Nigeria, it’s going to be more expensive due to distance. Malaysia is the number one leader; they produce it there.
“Is it sesame seed, shea butter—they produce them there? So what are you going to export?
These are the questions we should ask. Yes, someone says you can bring your goods, but what do you have to carry that will make economic sense? That’s the reality.”
He queried how Nigeria can compete with zero tariff on the back of the power challenge, among others.
“Now on power, for example,
China is the largest consumer of energy in the world today because of their manufacturing.
“What is the cost of power per unit or per kilowatt in China? What is the cost per kilowatt in Nigeria?
How can we compete even with zero tariff?
“China is using robotics in its manufacturing.
So how can Nigeria compete with China that uses robots? Yes, you have zero tariff, but where, how, and what are you going to carry there at the price that the Chinese will be willing to buy—short of giving them free?
“These are the questions.
In my candid opinion, I don’t think Nigeria is the only country in the world that has a zero tariff.
Nigeria is not ready for such opportunities—we are not ready. We are not yet cost-effective in our production. We should not be looking for China, but Cotonou, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso. We can’t compete in that market. We don’t have the production efficiency to compete. We are not positioned to explore the opportunity.”
For the Director, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr. Muda Yusuf, the policy is a good one which offers great opportunity for Nigeria to further strengthen its balance of trade position with China.
He noted that over the past two years, Nigeria has been heavily in deficit in its trade relationship with China.
Yusuf maintained that as good as the offer is, the only way to benefit from it maximally is for Nigeria to also have something of standard to export to China, which is very critical.
“It’s one thing to have a good opportunity, it’s another thing to have the products to export to China. That is where the bigger challenge is, and that is where we need to do a lot more work to see how we can support our exporters, including our SMEs, to export to China, because we also need to realize that exporting to China is also something that’s very competitive, because other countries are also exporting to China too.
“There are countries in Asia, other African countries, that also export to China. So whatever is exported, it’s not just exporting—we need to be competitive in whatever we’re exporting. And unfortunately, most of our exports are agro-products; most of them are primary products. So that is the challenge.”
He sought increased capacity building to stand competitively.
“We need to do a lot more work to build our export capacity—especially non-oil export capacity. I don’t think we have much challenge with selling our oil, but we need to do a lot more to deepen our capacity to export non-oil products. That is where the issue is.”
The economic expert added that for the SMEs, the bigger opportunities for small business are in the non-oil exports, hence the need to look inward to harness this opportunity.
“We should be looking at the products that we have. It could be our garment products, it could be our fashion products, maybe some aspects of manufactured products—outside of electronics or ICT, we don’t even have capacity in those areas.
The best of our capacity is in the agro-allied sector. So let’s see how far we can go in exporting agro-allied products, in exporting our fashion wares, even primary agricultural products as well. So those are the things I think we can do.”
He cited the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunities Act) as an opportunity that has been untapped for over 20 years, noting that Nigeria couldn’t take any significant advantage of it because the country’s export capacity in the non-oil export is actually very weak:
“We need to strengthen that. And now that you have a weak currency, we cannot have a better opportunity to export than now—but we have to take some deliberate steps to build that capacity,” he said.