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Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer; the industry earns 90% of the country's export income and has underpinned its economy for decades. Nigeria also has commercially viable quantities of tin, coal, iron ore, zinc and some uranium, plus substantial but as yet largely untapped reserves of natural gas and coal.

Agriculture occupies well over half of the population, who produce rice, maize, cassava, sorghum and millet as staples, as well as groundnuts, cocoa, palm oil and rubber as cash crops. Timber and livestock rearing have both developed during the last 20 years. Nonetheless, successive governments have failed to restore Nigeria's one-time self-sufficiency in food.

Manufacturing was established during the 1960s, principally with oil money, and now includes food processing and the production of vehicles, textiles, pharmaceuticals, paper and cement.

Per capita GDP is around US$690 annually, which is improved but still not desirable. The country is weighed down by a massive foreign debt. Reduction negotiations have been completed with the 'Paris Club' of leading creditors. As a condition of the rescheduling, the government has begun to put into effect economic reforms, including the sale of major state-owned industries.

Recent economic performance has been determined mainly by the state of the world oil market. Governmental deregulation of fuel prices and the privatisation of Nigeria's four oil refineries in 2003, coupled with the rise in oil production, meant that recent GDP growth has been good, estimated at around 6.2% in 2005.

Nigeria is the dominant member of the West African economic cooperation organisation, ECOWAS, as well as a leading member of the oil producers' cartel, OPEC.