The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has allayed the fears of Nigerians and the international community over the inability of the bank to hold the Monetary Policy Committee meeting earlier scheduled for Monday and Tuesday due to the non-confirmation of the MPC nominees by the Senate.
A statement signed by Emefiele explained that the MPC meeting would not be holding in January 2018 as a result of the bank’s inability to form a quorum as stipulated in the CBN Act 2007.
In spite of the statutory meeting not holding in January, the CBN governor noted that key economic indicators continued to move in the right direction.
Consequently, he said the CBN would continue to maintain the key monetary variables as decided in the last MPC meeting of November 2017, which was to hold Monetary Policy Rate at 14 per cent, CRR at 22.5 per cent, Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent and the asymmetric corridor at +200 and -500 basis points around the MPR.
He cited the recovery in oil prices and boost in domestic production, Nigeria’s exit from recession in 2017, decline in inflation rate to 15.37 per cent, and accretion to the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which now stands at $40.78bn, as positive indicators, stressing that these underscored the fact that the Nigerian economy remained strong.
Furthermore, he noted that strong investor confidence in Nigeria had attracted inflows of about $13bn through the Investors’ and Exporters’ window, opened by the CBN in 2017. According to him, these inflows have boosted FX supply and helped to stabilise the exchange rate.
“We have also seen market capitalisation of our Stock Exchange improve by 22.3 per cent from N13.21tn on November 30, 2017 to N16.15tn as at 19 January 2018, while the All-Share Index rose by 18.8 percent from 37,944.60 to 45,092.83 over the same period,” he added.
