Changing trends in North-South trade contexts? An assessment of the intra-industry trade patterns between Germany and Nigeria

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2016 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations grade: 10 School of Oriental and African Studies University of London (Department of Economics) language: English abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyse whether and how recent North-South trade relations have been influenced by intra-industry trade patterns. The assumption is that there are continuous patterns of intra-industry trade within and outside the product categories the Northern and the Southern country trade with each other most commonly. However they only represent a fraction of the otherwise dominating inter-industry type of trade. By analysing a case study of the bilateral trade between Germany and Nigeria it is found that the nature of intra-industry trade is governed by two central causes: 1) the minor diversification of the Nigerian economy and low levels of trade in non-mineral products and 2) the revitalisation of traditional inter-industry trade dynamics brought about by the gradual move towards a Euro-African Free Trade Area.