World Bank report reveals that moving goods within Nigeria is 5.3% higher than in the US

WORLD Bank officials have lamented the fact that it costs more to move goods locally within Nigerian than to ship them around the US  as local shipment costs are some 5.3 times higher than they are in America.

Like most developing nations, Nigeria suffers greatly from the high cost of doing business due to the lack of basic infrastructure such as rail, good roads, electricity supply, storage facilities, etc. To add to Nigeria's woes, the cost of getting goods from the Lagos port in Apapa to the rest of the country is also high due to the congestion there, which result in huge delays.

According to a recent World Bank report, reducing the cost of moving goods through enhancing the effectiveness of transport networks and services is crucial to resuscitating global trade.  This disclosure was contained in the Global Facility to Decarbonise Transport report newly published by the World Bank.

In part, the report read: “Despite the increased globalisation of production and trade, the world today is still far from being a single integrated economy. Landlocked developing countries, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s nations, face higher transport costs than coastal countries.”

Highlighting Nigeria's specific problems, the report added that it costs more to move goods locally in Nigerian than in the US. It revealed that the cost of moving goods per unit distance domestically in Nigeria is about 5.3 times higher than in the US.