During the 1970s Nigeria had a prosperous, export-orientated mining industry. Before the discovery of oil, the West African nation had developed strong production operations for coal, tin and columbite. The discovery of hydrocarbons eclipsed these activities and relegated mining to an economic footnote. However, with the recent decline in the...
In 2016 the government turned its attention to bitumen – also known as asphalt, which is used in road-surfacing – placing the country’s large standalone deposits of the hydrocarbon mixture at the centre of its plans to bolster the extractive industries and support economic diversification and growth. While this has the potential to support...
The retail sector in Nigeria is based on the latent potential of Nigeria’s population, currently estimated at 184m and growing. Firms hoping to cater to that block of consumers must overcome challenges such as finding land to build retail space, importing goods and managing currency risk. The naira, under pressure since the drop in oil prices...
In 2015 and the first half of 2016 mobile data moved to the front and centre of Nigeria’s telecoms sector. In recent years the country’s four established mobile operators – namely the local firm Globacom, the UAE’s Etisalat, South Africa’s MTN and India’s Airtel – have ramped up investment in the development of high-bandwidth mobile data...
The popular “Africa Rising” narrative has largely been predicated on the emergence of a growing middle class on the continent, providing a steady rise in consumer demand to go with the increased export receipts and lower public debt burdens seen across Africa. But with oil prices falling since mid-2014, along with a rising US dollar and...
One of the most visible policy moves by Nigerian authorities in 2016 has been to limit access to foreign currency in the country. The decision to institute capital controls was rolled out as a result of low oil prices, which have led to a drop in dollar-denominated export revenues and put the naira under increasing pressure. To limit the need...
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