Evaluating the Effectiveness of Export Financing Programmes in Nigeria: Challenges, Opportunities and Impact on Non-Oil Exports
Abstract
The study examined the effectiveness of Nigeria’s export financing programmes in promoting non-oil exports. The study’s objectives were to assess the effectiveness of these programmes, identify the challenges limiting their success, and highlight opportunities for improvement. The study was anchored on the Export-led Growth (ELG) Hypothesis. A quantitative time-series research design was used in the study, analyzing annual data from 1990 to 2024 sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Bureau of Statistics. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity, the Johansen cointegration framework, Vector Autoregressive (VAR), Granger Causality, Ljung–Box Q-statistics, Impulse Response Function (IRF), and the Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (FEVD) were the econometric tools used for the analysis, accomplished using E-views. The findings indicated that public and commercial bank credit has a statistically significant positive effect on non-oil export performance in the short run. However, this effect is not permanent and decays over time. Challenges such as poor access to credit, high rejection rates of financing applications, high interest rates, and policy inconsistencies limit these programmes’ effectiveness. It was concluded that while export financing programmes provide a measurable short-term boost to non-oil exports, their long-term impact is constrained by significant operational and macroeconomic challenges. The study recommended leveraging opportunities such as promoting value addition in agricultural and solid mineral resources to improve the effectiveness of these programmes.
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