As the country exits recession, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said the economy will continue to improve in the days and years ahead.
Speaking at the CBN’s 24th seminar for finance correspondents and editors in Awka, Anambra State yesterday, the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele said he is “hugely optimistic that improved outcomes will be recorded in our work towards taming inflation, bringing down interest rates and guaranteeing exchange rate stability.”
To achieve this, the CBN, he said is “consistently devising ingenious approaches to solve our peculiar challenges and will continue to learn from the experiences of other countries, particularly developing nations.”
Emefiele however lamented that “the major challenge has been structurally-induced inflation, which has presented a dilemma to policy makers on whether to align the rates with socially desired or policy consistent outcomes.”
To address these challenges, the CBN he said “has embarked on massive monetary stimulus through direct interventions in sectors that hold immense benefits for the broader economy.”
Such interventions have been in agriculture, micro, medium and small scale enterprises (MSMEs), power sector, aviation and youth entrepreneurship, among others.
These measures he said were necessitated by the liquidity (and credit) crunch that followed the global financial crises.
The CBN, Emefiele said “has consistently sought to formulate interest and exchange rate policies that are conducive to the development of domestic private industrial activities, while taking due cognizance of other macroeconomic variables.”
Speaking on foreign exchange (forex) and interest rate developments in the country, Emefiele said the apex bank recently introduced flexbile forex regime, with forex restrictions placed on the importation of 41 items.
“This became inevitable in order to curtail fast depleting foreign reserves, occasioned by the significant demand for imports in Nigeria,” he said.
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