Mr. Godwin Emefiele - the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has
defended the decision of the central bank to tighten foreign exchange
controls by excluding 40 items comprising rice, toothpicks, cement,
margarine, palm kernel oil, Vegetable oil, meat and
processed meat products, etc, from the interbank forex market. In order to reduce the pressure on the naira while preserving external
reserves, importers of such items would have to source their fx
requirements from private channels or the bureau de change (BDC) segment
of the market.
In a statement on Wednesday, CBN Governor, said the country spends an
estimated N1.3 trillion on items that could be manufactured locally,
adding that Nigerians need to have a soul-searching conversation on the
impact the import regime has on the economy in the areas of industrialization and job creation. He however, explained that it was necessary to shed more light on the rationale
behind the policy, “in view of the announcement we made yesterday to
exclude more items from accessing foreign exchange at the interbank
market”. In the case of yesterday’s announcement, I am happy to inform and
underscore that this policy change is in line with my long-held belief
that Nigeria cannot attain its true potential by simply importing
everything. At some point, we have to all decide what we really want for our
country, and I believe that the time is now right for that deep and
honest conversation. - CBN Governor
I also noted that despite Nigeria’s relatively impressive GDP growth
rates over the past seven years, there seems to be an absence of a
corresponding reduction in unemployment or poverty.
My personal as well as the Bank’s institutional analyses of the
situation compelled us to believe that we needed to aggressively begin
the process of feeding ourselves by ourselves and producing much of what
we need in this country. And in order to begin this process, the CBN took measures to increase
credit allocations to pivotal productive sectors of the economy with a
view to stimulating increased output in these sectors, creating jobs on a
mass scale and significantly reducing our import bills. Would be a new dawn in economy of Nigeria? more update later....