Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has bemoaned the shortage of foreign exchange in the country.
To this end, the CBN chief has charged leaders of the Nigerian banking sector to come up with ways on how to tackle the lingering challenge.
Emefiele spoke at the 13th annual Bankers’ Committee Retreat in Lagos on Friday.
He underscores the urgent need to develop the non-oil sector, lamenting that foreign exchange receipt from crude oil sales has dried up from above $3 billion monthly in 2014 to an absolute zero dollars.
“There is clear shortage of foreign exchange today. But yet as Bankers, we must meet the needs of our customers. Market is tight. And I know we don’t have a choice; we will have to do something to ensure that this problem is solved.”
“That is the reason we decided that this retreat must focus on RT200 essentially. How do we begin to think about how to source foreign exchange for our customers’ import needs without necessarily depending on revenue from crude, which like you all know has come to almost zero compared to almost about $3billion monthly that we’re getting in 2014,” he said
Recognising the hindrances of high inflation and foreign exchange shortages on the achievement of national development goals, Emefiele said the 2022 Retreat with the theme “Increasing the Productive Base of the Nigerian Economy and Non-Oil Export Revenues,” was convened to focus on the development of the local manufacturing industry and non-oil sectors, more broadly, and particularly to enhance the sector’s capacity to generate foreign exchange inflows.
He said the focus is even more germane considering the enormity of the global economic turbulence, as wave after wave of negative shocks continue to ravage many countries.
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