Emefiele seeks pact with states to develop economy

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has sought the collaboration of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT to ensure Nigeria’s economic development.

He made the call Thursday in Abuja at a meeting with the governors who were led by the Chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi and his deputy, Aminu Tambuwal at the apex bank headquarters.

Emefiele said, “As you may be aware, the Bank’s initiatives to enhance agricultural development are focused on boosting the production of  identified  agricultural commodities that have high growth enhancement impact, create jobs, improve capacity of industries, conserve foreign exchange has taken new dimensions.  Following Mr. President’s directives, we have identified 10 key commodities including  Rice, Cotton, Oil Palm, Tomato, Cassava, Poultry, Fish, Maize, Cocoa and Livestock/Dairy as key enterprises  to be developed along the value chain to achieve the above stated goals.

“In the past three months, we have made substantial  progress but we need to interact more with our state governors  to sustain the momentum. The ultimate objective is to make our states economically viable through enhanced investments by the private sector which  would in turn  create more economic opportunities  at the sub national level, engage our teeming youth in meaningful enterprises, improve  internally generated revenue base for states to meet the developmental expectation of its citizens.

“This is in addition to what we are doing through Anchor Borrowers Programme to support small holder farms in our rural communities.

On cotton, he stated that in efforts to revive the sector through Anchor Borrowers Programme, CBN commenced with the cultivation of 200,000 ha of hybrid cotton distributed to 200,000 farmers in 26 states in the country namely: Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Kaduna, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Oyo, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Benue, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ekiti, Ogun and Lagos.

“Our target is to work with relevant stakeholders to engage about 300,000 farmers to achieve 450,000MT of cotton in 3 years. The Bank championed the drafting and adoption of an MoU between major stakeholders that include members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria; Nigeria Customs Services; Nigeria Police; Nigeria Correctional Services; Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps; NYSC, ” he said.

In their responses, the governors expressed readiness to partner the bank while lauding the efforts of the apex bank in implementing policies and programmes that have rekindled hope that poverty and unemployment can be conquered.

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