The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it’s various interventions into the Nigerian economy has spurred economic diversification.
The CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele gave the indication at the weekend at a special seminar organised by the Central Bank of Nigeria, for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors with the theme “Policy Options for Economic Diversification: Thinking Outside the Crude Oil-Box”.
Represented at the event by the CBN Director Corporate Communications, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi, Md. Emefiele said the CBN “has taken major leaps to diversify the economy away from largely oil-based economy through our numerous interventions.”
“We have supported non-oil sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, health care, education, power and aviation and other allied economic value chains. You may recall that our flagship Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) that heralded recent rice revolution in Nigeria has changed the long-standing dependence on imported rice as the country is not only depending on domestic production, but we have now become a rice exporting country. The Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) is a major special purpose vehicle to support commercial farmers in the country in different value chains including oil palm, cotton, cocoa, among others” he explained.
The apex banks Governor said the “continued support to the manufacturing sector and MSMEs have been yielding great results as the implementation of 44 items not valid for FX for imports has revealed. Let me take this medium to inform you once again that our intervention in the health sector, for example has begun to reduce the health care tourism being sought outside the country which is helping to conserve our foreign exchange and improve our well-being.”
Furthermore, he said “the new 100 for 100 Policy on Production and Productivity (PPP), which is targeted at harnessing our local raw materials to increase our domestic production, as well as exports through our deliberate credit and other supports, will soon begin to yield quality results. Moreso, the RT200 FX initiative designed to take advantage of our large domestic production to other regional markets is targeted to increase foreign exchange inflows to the economy and support exchange rate stability. In addition, the on-going work at the Dangote Refinery, when fully completed, will stop fuel importation just as we witnessed in cement, sugar and fertilizer market.”
