Nigeria Needs More Efforts Against Global Shocks – Godwin Emefiele

Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele has said it is necessary for the country to aid her growth and come up with employments in key sectors to ensure the economy is immune from global shocks.

He revealed this as he gave a welcome address at a consultative roundtable titled, “Going for Growth” with some economic stakeholders in Lagos.

His words, “Typically, for a nation to be seen to be prosperous, any citizen of that country will expect macro-economic indices such as low interest rate regime, stable exchange rate regime and robust reserve position, low inflationary environment, as well as an environment of full employment.”

“Although, we had hoped to achieve a lower level of interest rate, this became impossible given the normalisation of monetary policy in the United States and the over 60 per cent drop in crude oil prices between 2014 and 2016.

“You will agree with me that the consequences of these unfortunate occurrences was a heightened inflationary pressure on the economy and monetary policy had no option but to embark on a regime of tightening so as to rein inflation.

“We also deployed measures aimed at supporting improved productivity of the Nigerian economy by restricting access to foreign exchange on 43 items that could be produced in the country.

“We have also strengthened our intervention programmes which helped in restarting the flow of credit to critical sectors of the economy.

“As part of our interventions, we introduced the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP); a programme that helped to improve access to credit to Small Holder Farmers through our intervention programmes such as Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme and the Real Sector Support Fund.

“We have enabled large agro processors and manufacturers expand their operations, thereby supporting our efforts at improving domestic production of goods,”

“Our domestic industries particularly high employment generating sectors like textile and garment sectors have to deal with rampant smuggling and dumping of materials through our borders.

“These challenges, no doubt call for action by the monetary and fiscal policies through the implementation of policies, the spirit and letter of which must be respected by all.

“Furthermore, the rising volatility which we see today in the crude oil market occasioned by the rapid increase in the supply of shale oil by the United States, and which has seen its production rise from 9 million barrels per day in 2017 to over 12 million barrels per day today.

“This portends great risk to Nigeria’s growth trajectory if we do not take actions that would wean us from excessive reliance on crude earnings for survival.”