Nigeria recorded a current account surplus of $3.73 billion in Q1 2025, representing a 1.84 percent decline compared with the $3.80 billion surplus that the country reported for the previous quarter, latest data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows.

According to the Current Account Balance (CAB) Q1 2025 report posted on the apex bank’s website yesterday: “Provisional balance of payments (BOP) statistics for Q1 2025 show a current account surplus of $3.73 billion, which was lower than the $3.80 billion recorded in the previous quarter, but slightly higher than the $3.69 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.”

A breakdown of the report indicates that that the goods account(a major sub-account of the current account) increased from $2.62 bn in Q4’2024 to $4.16 bn in Q1’2025; non-oil exports incresased by 30.39 per cent to $2.66 bn in Q1’2025 from the preceding quarter while gas exports increased from $2.10 billion to $2.66 billion.

Non-oil imports, however, declined by 8.14 percent from $7.37 bn in Q4’2024 to $6.77 bn in the first quarter of this year.

The report said: “Higher (positive) balance in the goods account was driven by: Increase in exports by 9.79 per cent to $13.91 billion in Q1 2025, as a result of increase in oil & gas exports earnings as well as non-oil exports.

“This developmentwas triggered by higher quantity of oil & gas exported and depreciation of the naira, which made our non-oil exports cheaper/more competitive.”