The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment says current e-commerce spending in Nigeria is estimated at $13 billion per annum and projected to rise to $75 billion in revenues by 2025.

Permanent secretary of the ministry, Evelyn Ngige, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the second National e-commerce Roundtable organised by the ministry.

Represented by Suleiman Audu, Director of Commodities and Export Department (CED) in the ministry, Mrs Ngige said the country’s e-commerce sub-sector grew from 14 per cent in 2019 to 17 per cent in 2020.

Stating that e-commerce was a significant contributor to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Mrs Ngige said, “Interestingly, e-commerce provides an alternative to sustain businesses and preserve millions of jobs in the face of COVID-19 challenge.

“For instance, in China, e-commerce companies played a key role in the supply of food and other essential commodities to residents of Wuhan during the knockdown period in 2020.

“In addition, Amazon, a U.S. based company, as a leading e-commerce company in the world, expanded and employed additional 175,000 new workers during the period due to increasing online demands for goods and services,” Mrs Ngige noted.

The CED director, represented by the department’s deputy director, Kaura Irimiya, described the e-commerce market as one of the thriving and promising markets globally, with estimated global sales of over $29 trillion.

According to him, despite growing opportunities in the e-commerce sub-sector, Nigeria was yet to fully explore its potentials due to inadequate investment in its value chain.

He said inadequate information on opportunities in the sector and government’s inability to provide the required enabling environment was a contributory factor.