Nigeria is still in talks to obtain foreign loans to help fund a record $31 billion budget for this year, aimed at helping Africa’s biggest economy cope with a slump in oil prices, its budget minister said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 6.06 trillion naira ($30.6 billion) budget last week, but the government has not yet made clear how it plans to fund a deficit of 2.2 trillion naira.
“We hope to access loans on concessionary rates, we are working hard to secure external funding,” Budget Minister Udoma Udo Udoma said in a speech, without elaborating.
He reiterated previous estimates for external and domestic borrowing needs totalling 1.8 trillion naira.
Nigeria has applied for a $1 billion loan from both the World Bank and African Development Bank while also considering selling Chinese Panda or Euro bonds, though no details have been made public.
Growth last year fell to its slowest rate since 1999 at 2.8 percent and inflation rose to a near four-year high of 12.8 percent in March while capital imports were down 74 percent year-on-year in the first quarter.
Buhari hopes to diversify the economy to end reliance on oil and gas revenues, which make up 70 percent of national income.
Late on Wednesday, with Buhari attending a conference in London, the government announced it was scrapping a costly fuel subsidy scheme and raising the price of gasoline, which many Nigerians rely on for electricity generation as well as transport, by 67 percent.
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