Nigeria’s economic woes are over, says Emefiele

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said that the dark days of Nigeria’s economy are over given the present economic recovery progress the nation is making as the various interventions taken so far, are yielding positive results.

Emefiele said that the nation’s current inflation rate declined from a peak of 18.7 per cent in January 2017 to 14.3 per cent in December 2017 while exchange rate appreciated significantly from over N525 to $1 in February 2017 to about N350 to $1 in February.

He stated this yesterday while declaring open the 25th edition of the seminar for finance correspondents and business editors in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State.

Represented by the CBN Deputy-Governor, Corporate Services, Mr. Edward Adamu, the CBN Governor said forex supply has improved since the establishment of the investors and exporters window with autonomous inflows of over 20 billion dollars through the window alone from April 2017 to date.

The governor enumerated some measures it took to exit the economy from recession to include, strict monetary policy, prudent external reserves management, exchange rate management, development finances among others.

Earlier, the Branch Controller, CBN, Mr. Okafor Nwokolo said that the apex bank has not only kept faith in the pursuit of its core mandate, it made intervention in the anchor borrower’s programme, which has revolutionalised the cultivation and production of rice.

CBN’s Acting Director of Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said all tiers of government and the private sector must rise up to ensure that the current measures being put in place to avoid recession in the future are sustained.