The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele, has pledged the apex bank’s commitment to making local lenders increase credit facilities to the agriculture sector to 10 percent. This is a part of tactics to key into the 2021 global economic restoration projection in the country.
According to the statement he made in Lagos last weekend during the Vanguard Economic Summit themed ‘Bankers’ Initiative for Economic Growth, he said, ‘with the discovery and deployment of vaccines, 2021 will be a year of massive global recovery, and Nigeria must not be left out.’
Conversely, to drive and sustain the envisaged massive recovery, he stated some measures which he viewed as routes to sustain the economic recovery. All these are to uphold the accommodative economic and monetary policy aimed at improving access to funding households and businesses; ensure that a significant number of the populace is properly vaccinated; prevent another wave in COVID-19 related cases and improving foreign exchange (forex) inflows into the country.
He furthered, “Over the next three years, we will continue to encourage the banking sector to increase its loans to the agriculture sector from four percent to 10 percent by 2024.” As already known that the agriculture sector was a key driver in taking the Nigerian economy from falling in the 4th quarter of 2020. It is vital that we not only sustain measures aimed at increasing productivity of this sector but also ensure that we continue to produce rather than importing them.”
He added that “Agricultural sector also offers significant opportunity for the nation to earn foreign exchange through the exports of processed agricultural products. We are also pursuing an in-depth restructuring of the Nigeria Commodities Exchange Board. This is to improve access to finance as well as productivity for stakeholders in the agriculture sector. Also, farmers will be able to expand production and have access to funding.”
“The CBN intends to support measures that will improve our non-oil export earnings significantly. As a result, we intend to aggressively implement our N500 billion facilities aimed at supporting the growth of our non-oil exports. This will help to improve non-oil export earnings. Exporters will be further encouraged to repatriate their export proceeds as stipulated under our extant laws. The CBN will continue to ensure that exporters have unfettered access to their export proceeds”.
“It is crucial that the CBN continue to provide accommodative monetary policy measures that will enable faster recovery of the economy. All these can be done through the improved flow of credit to households and businesses in key sectors of the economy i.e., agriculture, ICT, and Manufacturing. These measures are essential if we are to return our economy to a sustainable growth path while reducing our exposure to volatility in commodity prices”.
Attention will be placed on inflation trends, as price stability is critical in guiding savings and investment decisions by households and businesses.
“With the decline in revenues due to federal and state government, alternative ways of funding are critical if we are to generate continual growth of our wealth. As we are all aware, a well-built infrastructure system can have a multiplier consequence on growth by enabling the expansion of business activities in the country. That is why I am happy that Mr. President has continued to give all the necessary approvals and support to establish the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria Limited. IntraCorp will be co-owned by the CBN, the African Finance Corporation, and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and would become fully operational by the second quarter of 2021.
