The Central Bank of Nigeria said the United States dollar is set to crash further this week, as the apex bank plans to inject more forex into the market to meet the requests of genuine customers.
The CBN has so far kept to its earlier assurance to continue to supply enough forex to guarantee liquidity in the forex market.
The apex bank’s spokesman, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, gave the assurance at the weekend, noting that the CBN was committed to ensuring that authorised forex dealers got sufficient supply to meet the demands of their authentic customers.
While disclosing that the CBN had since February offered over $1 billion to the interbank market, Okoroafor expressed optimism that stability had been restored to the market, with individuals now being able to easily access forex to address personal and business allowances.
A cursory view of the summary of the CBN intervention in the interbank market over the past two months shows the highest bid rate was N360/$1, while the lowest was N315/$1.
However, desirous of monetary and fiscal collaboration in order to pull the Nigerian economy out of the current crunch, economic management leaders from the CBN and the Ministries of Finance, Budget and National Planning as well as Trade and Investment, over the weekend, gathered in Abuja to harmonise their policy perspectives.
Speaking at the opening of the two-day Monetary Policy Committee retreat at the CBN corporate headquarters in Abuja at the weekend, with the theme: “Pathway to Price Stability Conducive to Economic Growth,” the governor of the apex bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, under whose auspices the meeting was convened, reiterated the need for the country’s monetary and fiscal authorities to collaborate and harmonise standpoints so as to develop the economy rapidly.
Emefiele, who also chairs the MPC said that the retreat, which for the first time had in attendance a large representation of the fiscal authorities, was coming at a period when the country faced serious economic challenges, adding that finding a sustainable solution required a broadened participation of colleagues from the fiscal side.
He said the retreat, as a brainstorming session, would provide perspectives on certain MPC decisions and would also close the gap in the coordination between monetary and fiscal authorities to chart a common course and take decisions to develop the economy.
In his remarks at the brainstorming session, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, said both the monetary and fiscal authorities had no choice but to work together to guarantee the country’s economic growth.
Udoma posited that the pathway to lower interest rate was to ensure monetary and fiscal authorities’ collaboration with the private sector.
Also speaking, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, and her Industry, Trade and Investment counterpart, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, both agreed that solving challenges facing the Nigerian economy required unconventional tactics.
Adeosun, while disclosing that there remained a huge number of unbanked Nigerians, whose contributions to the economy are hardly captured, said that the government must devise ways to bring them into the financial mainstream.
She also hinted that, based on the current realities, the Federal Government would have to borrow more to meet its infrastructural obligation.
On his part, Dr. Enelamah emphasised the need for both monetary and fiscal authorities to ensure business, market and investor confidence, as well as policy integrity, in order to improve on the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
