The value of used cars imported by Nigerians dropped by 51.2% from N346.29bn in the first half of 2021 to N169.1bn in the first half of 2022, according to recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The 2022 first half figure also represents a decline of 37.7% when compared to the N271.2bn spent in importing second-hand cars into the country in the second half of 2021.
Also, Nigerians imported motorcycles valued at N122.39bn between January and June 2022, which is 31.1% lower than the N177.6bn spent for the same reason in the second half of 2021.
Many importers attributed the drop in vehicular and motorcycle imports to the rapidly declining value of the naira against major international currencies especially the US dollars.
The latest NBS figures show that Nigeria’s car imports fell to the lowest levels since the first half of 2018 when Nigerians spent N59.1 billion on used cars.
Due to the surging cost of importing foreign used vehicles, dealers have reduced their orders even as the unit costs of the vehicles have increased by almost 50% in the past one year.
Many importers said they source forex from the black market due to the inability of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to meet their forex demands.
The naira on Monday crashed to N870 to the dollar at the black market while the official exchange rate was N440.53 to the greenback.
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