The Nigeria Customs Service says it has deepened ties with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs of the UK for trade facilitation and digital border management.

Customs’ spokesperson, Abdullahi Maiwada, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.

Mr Maiwada said the move, in furtherance of its commitment to enhancing international customs cooperation, follows a high-level bilateral meeting in London under the framework of the Nigeria-United Kingdom Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership.

He said the meeting held on the sidelines of President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to the UK was led by customs comptroller-general Bashir Adeniyi and Megan Shaw, Head of International Customs and Border Engagement at HMRC.

According to him, discussions centred on advancing customs modernisation, strengthening data transparency in bilateral trade flows and expanding operational cooperation between both administrations.

He said both administrations identified gaps in bilateral trade data as a structural bottleneck requiring coordinated resolution.

“Available statistics indicate that approximately 504 million pounds in UK-origin goods were recorded as imports into Nigeria in 2024. The UK reported exports to Nigeria valued at approximately £1.7 billion for the same period.

“To address this gap, both parties agreed to explore establishing a structured pre-arrival data exchange framework between their respective digital customs platforms to enhance risk management, improve data reconciliation and strengthen compliance monitoring,” he said.

The NCS official said that the engagement provided an opportunity for both administrations to present their respective customs modernisation programmes.

This, he said, includes the UK’s advancements in artificial intelligence-driven trade tools, digital verification systems, and real-time analytics capabilities. He said the discussions underscored the importance of deeper collaboration in technology deployment and digital border management, while also producing key outcomes.

He listed the outcomes as the development of a Customs Mutual Administrative Assistance Framework and the commencement of technical scoping for capacity-building and knowledge exchange.

He also added the establishment of a joint technical engagement mechanism under the ETIP framework as one of the outcomes.

(NAN)