The Study centered on Impact of international trade on economic growth in Nigeria with three objectives in
which its sole aim it to ascertain if international trade has any significant impact on the growth of the Nigeria
Economy within the period of study. Tests were carried out to ascertain the validity of these objectives using
time series variables covering 36 years on Gross Domestics Product (GDP), imported goods, exportation of
goods and trade openness which were sourced from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Annual Abstract of
Statistics and Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin and analyzed using the appropriate statistical tests. The
result of the analysis indicated that import and export are positively related to the economic growth in Nigeria
while trade openness has a negative relationship with the growth of the economy. Also, the findings of the study
further showed that import and trade openness has significant impact on the economic growth of the country
within the period of study with 5%level of significance and 35degrees of freedom which falls on rejection
region of the null hypothesis. Export is positively related to the GDP but has no significant impact on the
growth of the economy. Therefore, import and trade openness are the deterministic variable for the growth of
the Nigeria Economy. The Granger Causality Result (GCR) showed that Import and GDP influences each other
(Bi- directional causality) with p-values of 0.0002 and 0.005<
=0.05 while export and trade openness has unidirectional influence on the GDP within the period of study. From the results of the study, recommendations
were made to advise the government on ways to handle international trade issues towards impacting
significantly on growth of the Nigeria economy.
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