AFEX, one of Nigeria’s leading commodity players, has projected that the high food prices which have been caused by inflationary pressure would continue to spike in 2022.

The company said this recently at the launch of its report titled ‘Annual Commodities Review and 2022 Outlook’.

The report predicted that the combination of rising inflationary pressure as Nigeria approaches the end of the petroleum subsidy, a possible of naira devaluation in the parallel market, and increased demand pressure on commodities in the country, would increase the price of grains during the new 2021/2022 trading season.

The annual commodity outlook by AFEX also alludes to price pressures being exacerbated by the fact of 2022 being a pre-election year, which will cause some market uncertainty. Speaking at the report launch, AFEX’s vice president, financial markets, Oluwafunto Olasemo, explained that “the AFEX Annual commodities outlook is a yearly outlook that is shared at the start of each year to provide some perspective on how the commodities market performed in the previous year and how commodities may perform in the new year.”

“The report’s primary objective is to close a data gap in Africa’s commodity sector and to give solid market intelligence to major stakeholders in the commodities value chain,” she added.

Reviewing the previous year, the report showed that after the COVID-19-induced lockdowns were lifted in 2021, the Nigerian agriculture sector expanded by an average of 1.60 percent in the first three quarters of the year.

The report stated that although this expansion was lower than the 1.72 percent recorded in 2020, it depicted some resilience compared to other significant sectors such as industry and services.

The report added that agriculture contributed an average of 25.35 percent to Nigeria’s GDP in 2021. P.M News