A survey has shown that within a nine-month period spanning through January to September 2019, Nigerians have spent not less than N509.8bn for importing used vehicles into the country.
It was gathered that the figure was arrived at based on analysis of the foreign trade in goods statistics obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The survey has it that the cars were imported into Nigeria from the United States (US) and some European Union (EU) countries such as Italy, Belgium, Germany and Canada.
During the first quarter of the year 2019, analysis of the trade statistics showed that Nigerians imported used cars worth N148.28bn.
In respect of the importing country,analysis of the N148.28bn showed that used vehicles worth N90.8bn were imported from the United States alone while the balance of N58bn was spent on vehicles imported from other countries.
However, for the second quarter of the year 2019, the report put the monetary value of the vehicles imported into the country at N177.34bn. Adding that, out of the N177.34bn, about N114.9bn worth of used vehicles came into the country from the US and N6.3bn from Italy. Belgium has N4.1bn while the balance of N52.04bn came in from other countries.
In the third quarter of the year 2019, the NBS statistics put the importation of used vehicles at N184.18bn. Encapsulation of all the costs of vehicles importation amounted to about N509.8bn during the year, 2019.
