Nigeria is sitting on over N40tn in untapped manufacturing opportunities, with imports meeting 64 per cent of local demand for manufactured goods in 2025, representing a $29.4bn market that domestic industry did not serve.
The figures were contained in the Nigerian Manufacturing Opportunity Report 2026 launched by SEID, a marketing communications and market intelligence firm in Lagos, at the recent 54th Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.
The report examines manufacturing opportunities across Nigeria’s subsectors, states, value chains and industrial clusters, while identifying areas where existing strengths can be deepened and competitiveness improved.
It said Nigeria’s manufacturing landscape was shaped by distinct areas of industrial strength, with different states, regions and value chains demonstrating varying levels of scale, specialisation and competitiveness.
The report noted that this created an opportunity to build on existing capabilities rather than adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to industrial development.
Manufacturing activity is spread across states with different levels of scale, specialisation and growth. The South-West remains the country’s largest manufacturing zone, while other regions are developing strengths in areas ranging from food and agro-processing to textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cement, steel and light manufacturing.
The report maps these differences to show where investment and industrial development can build on existing capabilities.
Speaking on the report, Managing Partner at SEID, Tubosun Akeju, said, “Nigeria already has the demand and some of the industrial strengths required to build a much stronger manufacturing sector.
“The opportunity is to understand where those strengths exist, deepen them, and build the competitiveness required to capture more value locally and compete beyond our borders. The Nigerian Manufacturing Opportunity Report 2026 provides decision-makers with the insights on opportunities that are most immediate, where Nigeria is already making progress and what needs to be done better to unlock greater value.”
While manufacturing remains a significant part of the economy, it has not grown at the same pace as GDP, with its contribution to GDP declining from 8.42 per cent in 2023 to 8.05 per cent in 2025.
The report therefore considers not only where production can increase, but where Nigeria can become more competitive by strengthening value chains, energy, logistics, infrastructure and technical skills.
The export opportunity is equally important. Nigeria’s manufacturing export intensity remains well below the Sub-Saharan African average, highlighting the need to look beyond serving the domestic market.
Where Nigeria already has production capacity and resource advantages, the next opportunity is to improve quality, scale, cost competitiveness and value-chain depth so that Nigerian businesses can compete more effectively in regional and global markets.
The Nigerian Manufacturing Opportunity Report 2026 brings these opportunities together across five major subsectors: Light Manufacturing and Packaging; Food and Agro-processing; Textiles, Apparel and Leather; Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals; and Cement and Steel. It also provides a state-level view of where manufacturing activity, specialisation and growth are concentrated.
The report also shows that three of the five major manufacturing subsectors account for about 71 per cent of manufacturing output, making the competitiveness and continued development of these areas particularly important to the sector’s overall performance.
At the same time, emerging strengths such as gas-linked fertiliser production demonstrate that Nigeria can compete where it has the right combination of feedstock, scale and industrial capacity. For investors, the report provides insight into where to enter; for manufacturers, where to scale; and for policymakers, what to enable.
