Sectoral and Products Wise Comparative Advantage in Nigeria-China Bilateral Trade Relations

This study seeks to identify commodities and sectors of comparative advantage between Nigeria and China and to determine the extent to which Nigeria's export matches with China's import demand. Applying the Revealed Sectorial Comparative Advantage Index and the Trade Complementarity index on data collected from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics and accessed via World Integrated Trade Solution (2018), the study found that there is a scope for Nigeria to competitively export fuels to China, while China can competitively export textile and clothes, footwear, metals, machinery, electronics, and miscellaneous products to Nigeria; Nigeria has a long period comparative advantage in only raw materials with robust export competitiveness while China has comparative advantage in consumer and capital goods with low export competitiveness; Nigeria has comparative advantage in only the petroleum sector and China has comparative advantage in only the industrial sector; and Nigeria can only partially meets 32.61% of Chinese import demand from 1988-2017. While China moderately meets 57.40% of what Nigeria requires from its export supply. The study, therefore, recommends the need for government to initiate policies aimed at maintaining existing product comparative advantage and to strengthen the competitiveness of products and sectors having a comparative disadvantage