The Central Bank of Nigeria said on Monday that it was in the process of finalising the creation of a N500 billion fund with the Nigeria Export-Import Bank to assist local manufacturers interested in non-oil exports.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed this at the ongoing financial journalists’ workshop in Uyo, Akawa Ibom State, said the fund would enable the economy to consolidate on the gains of local production and boost non-oil exports.
Emefiele, who was represented by the CBN Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Edward Adamu, said the apex bank would continue to take major steps to support the economy and real sector operators.
Speaking on the theme: “Sustaining Economic Growth beyond Recession”, the CBN governor said it was important to remember how the economy got into a recession in the first instance.
He said Nigeria entered recession owing to significant fall in oil prices from an average of about $110 per barrel to as low as $28 per barrel, normalization of Monetary Policy by the United States’ Federal Reserve System, which led to a stoppage of injection of about $85 billion per month into the global economy; geopolitical tensions amongst critical trading routes and partners around the world.
This, he said, led to slowdown in economic growth, culminating in five consecutive quarters of Gross Domestic Product, contraction bottoming at -2.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2017, having grown by nearly seven per cent in previous years; rising Inflation, peaking at over 18 per cent in January 2017, from as low as nine per cent, in January 2016.
He noted that the foreign reserves would continue to grow, adding that the reserves might hit $50 billion sometime later this year, even as the economic recovery continued.
