The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has stated that he remains confident that the economy will be out of recession by the end of the third quarter of 2017.
Speaking in Abuja, Emefiele declared that the CBN will not dictate where the much-needed foreign exchange convergence will be but declared that he is optimistic that the exchange rate will head southwards and not towards the north adding that the bank remains resolute on sustaining its current foreign exchange policy in the interest of the Nigerian economy.
“My view is that with all the positive signs we see: inflation tending downwards, GDP improving to the extent that negative growth rate has decelerated quite significantly, in fact we have seen foreign exchange going to the real sector and industrial capacities are beginning to improve,” Emefiele said.
“We’ve seen positive signs in various economic sectors, I am very confident that at the end of the third quarter, we will be out of this and I still hold that position.
“We would prefer a convergence that will significantly be going southwards, than a convergence that will go northwards. The fact that we have seen a convergence in the southward direction gives us a lot of hope that things are working in the right direction.
“Even I, want a low interest rate but the economic aggregates that we see today, unfortunately, does not give room for us to begin to look at that direction of signalling a downward interest rate.
“You would have read World Bank and IMF reports and what they have both insisted is that we should tighten further. But rather than tightening, what the monetary policy committee has decided to do is to hold and watch, given that we had embarked on a consistent policy tightening before we decided to adopt the hold strategy.
“I have said it and I will repeat myself that the interventions will be more vigorous and intense, to underscore the fact that we are determined to ensure that the Nigerian economy recovers, by making sure that foreign exchange is being made available to all sectors of the Nigerian economy to conduct their businesses.”