Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele hinted yesterday of new plans to combat the nation’s forex crisis.
He said the apex bank was looking beyond monetary policy measures to deal with the challenges.
According to Emefiele, monetary policies cannot sufficiently address the problem in the face of rising demand for foreign exchange for goods, services and other needs.
Speaking at the maiden bi-annual Non-Oil Export Summit in Lagos, Emefiele described the RT200 FX Programme recently unveiled by the apex bank as one of such strategies.
The RT200 FX Programme is an initiative of the Bankers’ Committee aimed at raising $200 billion in non-oil export earnings over the next three to five years.
Emefiele listed value-adding exports facility; non-oil commodities expansion facility; non-oil fx rebate scheme; dedicated non-oil export terminal and biannual non-oil export summit as the five pillars anchoring the programme.
According to him, the CBN has been working overtime to manage the demand and supply side to meet forex obligations.
Attributing the prevailing challenges of the local economy to COVID-19 pandemic, delays in global logistic value chains and local security challenges, Emefiele expressed concern that the current sources of foreign exchange inflows were unreliable and prone to fluctuations of global economic developments.
The CBN boss noted that the global economic challenges have impacted food production among others and exerted undue pressure on the economy, thereby exposing the fragility of the Nigerian economy and making macroeconomic management very difficult.
Stressing the need for a more diversified economy, Emefiele said Monetary Policy alone could not bear all the burden of the expected adjustments needed to manage the challenges to the Nigerian economy.
He said: “These problems call for urgent design and steadfast implementation of other supportive, structural and complementary policies that are broad based, coordinated and focused on complementing the work of the monetary authority.”
