In its effort to improve Foreign Exchange Inflows, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to aggressively implement N500 billion facility to support the growth of non oil exports in the country.
The CBN, Governor, Godwin Emefiele who disclosed this in Lagos at one day summit organised by Vanguard newspaper in collaboration with CBN and bankers committee said CBN intends to support measures that will improve the nation’s non-oil export earnings significantly.
He said that the apex bank will as well encourage exporters to repatriate their export proceeds as stipulated under our extant laws.
Admitting that the agriculture sector was a key driver in taking the Nigerian economy away from negative growth in the fouth quarter of 2020, he said that it is necessary for Nigeria to only sustain measures aimed at increasing productivity of the sector, but also ensure that we continue to produce items that can be produced locally rather than resorting to imports of these items.
He said that agricultural sector offers significant opportunity for the nation to earn foreign exchange through the exports of processed agricultural products, adding that in the next three years, apex bank will continue to encourage the banking sector to increase its loans to the agriculture sector from four percent to 10 percent by 2024.
Speaking further he said “We are also pursuing an in-depth restructuring of the Nigeria Commodities Exchange Board in order to improve access to finance as well as productivity for stakeholders in the agriculture sector.
” With enhanced logistics and the provision of warehouse receipts through the Commodities Exchange, farmers will be able to access finance, expand production and supply needed goods to off-takers.”
He further said that the CBN has already taken several measures to increase the flow of diaspora remittances into the country using formal channels.
In his explanation, he said “in December 2020, we instructed all international money transfer operators (IMTOs) to provide remitters with the option of sending foreign exchange to beneficiaries in Nigeria.”
