CBN Governor, Godwin EmefieleThe Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Governor, Godwin Emefiele has expressed confidence that key economy indicators have continued to move in the right direction with modest recovery in oil prices and boost in the domestic production.
This is even as he said that the inability of the CBN to hold January 2018 Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting was as a result of lack of statutory quorum specified in the CBN Act 2007, adding that this development has arisen from non-confirmation of the nominees by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Emefiele, in a statement in the early hours of Monday, identified other positive indicators in the nation’s economic growth, include continued decline in inflation to 15.37 per cent, accretion foreign exchange reserves from about US$23 billion in October 2016 to US$40.78 billion as at January 18.
The governor, who reflected on the investors’ confidence, said that the recently introduced Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) window has raked-in over US$13 billion within the space of nine months.
He said that the positive economic outlook and the foreign exchange inflows have also impacted positively on the capital market which boosted the market capitalization by 22.3 per cent from N13.21 trillion on November 30, 2017 to N16.15 trillion as at January 19, 2018.
This was even as the the CBN gave indication that in the absence of the meeting of the MPC decisions, the Bank would maintain “key monetary variables as decided by the last MPC meeting of November 2017 as follows:
MPR 14.0 per cent
CRR 22.5 per cent
Liquidity Ratio 30.0 per cent
Asymmetric corridor between +200 and -500 basis points around the MPR. [myad]
