Nigeria must prepare for next global economic crisis — Emefiele

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, on
Wednesday, said Nigeria must prepare for the next global economic
crisis.

Emefiele said this while delivering a lecture titled: ‘Beyond
the Global Financial Crisis: Monetary Policy under Global
Uncertainty,’ at the University of Benin, Benin, Edo State.

He said although the country had made progress in the year under
review, more efforts must be made to reduce the country’s
unemployment rate.

Emefiele stated, “From some of my concluding remarks, you may
have observed, whether you like it or not, there is global
uncertainty that will, unfortunately, most certainly lead to
another crisis.

“The question could be, how are we as Nigerians, particularly
our leaders, I am talking of monetary and fiscal policy
authorities, how are we preparing our country for the next
crisis?

“We have luckily exited recession; we have seen recession
pending downward to about 18.72 per cent in 2017 to about 11. 37
per cent today.

“We have seen the reserve moving up but unfortunately we still
have issues and those issues border on the unemployment rate and
those issues border on how we prepare our country,” he said.

While enumerating effort being made by the apex bank to
stabilise the nation’s economy, Emefiele said the introduction of
the investors and exporters’ window had helped in shoring up the
country’s external reserves.

He said the turnover in the I&E FX Window had reached over
$48bn since the inception of the window and that the nation’s
foreign exchange reserve had risen to $45bn in April 2019 from
$23bn in October 2016.

The CBN governor added that Nigeria’s current stock of external
reserves was able to finance nine months of current import
commitments.

He said with the improved availability of foreign exchange, the
exchange rate at I&E FX Window had remained stable over the
past 24 months at an average of N360/$, and the parallel market
exchange rate had appreciated from N525/$ in February 2017 to
N360/$ today.

“After five consecutive quarters of negative growth beginning in
the 1st quarter of 2016, a coordinated approach by the fiscal and
monetary authorities supported a rebound in the nation’s economy
during the second quarter of 2017.

“The recovery has been driven largely by improved non-oil
activities especially the agriculture sector which expanded
consistently by about 3.5 per cent to 4.3 per cent reflecting
government’s efforts at diversifying the economy,” he added.

In the same vein, Emefiele was quoted in a statement from the
CBN as seeking economic patriotism and urging stakeholders in the
public and private sectors to look inwards in developing the
Nigerian economy.

Emefiele charged Nigerians to think of what they could do to
improve the fortunes of the economy, rather than what they could
benefit from the economy.

The CBN governor noted that there was huge potential within the
Nigerian economy to make it as developed as other countries, which
were its peers at independence but had gone ahead to become more
developed.

He added that the lecture was part of the bank’s efforts at
promoting research and collaboration with universities, towards
developing policies and programmes that would enhance the economic
well-being of all Nigerians.

He highlighted how the crisis had helped to reshape monetary
policy tools used by Central Banks to address dips in their
economies.

He said, “The 60 per cent drop in crude oil prices between 2014
– 2016 along with normalisation of monetary policy by the United
States Federal Reserve Bank in 2014, imposed severe constraints on
the Nigerian economy, given our reliance on crude oil for over 90
per cent of our export earnings and 60 per cent of government
revenue.”

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