Abstract

This study examined the impact of international trade on economic growth in Nigeria with the objective of identifying the major factors influencing economic growth through international trade and make policy suggestions This study made use of time series secondary data obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics and International Financial Statistics for a period between 1981 and 2014 Augmented Dickey-Fuller ADF test together with Phillip-Perron PP test of Unit Root Tests were employed to ascertain the stationarity properties of the variables The Ordinary Least Square OLS technique was used to test for the significant relationship between the level of economic growth proxied by GDP as dependent variable and exchange rate government expenditure interest rate foreign direct investment import and export as independent variables The result revealed that government expenditures interest rate import and export are all positively significant while exchange rate and foreign direct investment are negatively insignificant to the growth process of the Nigerian Economy The econometric results suggest that Nigerian government should give more emphasis to specialization on agriculture so as to diversify her production and export base in order to enable the country benefit all the gains of trade including economic growth The country s trade should not only be on primary and oil exports but also the promotion of non-primary exports and non-oil exports i e manufactured goods Promotion of exports within the context of sub-regional and regional economic integration should be vigorously pursued to expand Nigerian international market and the importation policy of the government should be strictly adhered to in order to control dumping and to encourage the local investors