The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has disclosed that the World Bank’s ease of doing business indicator for 2018 showed that Nigeria, with a score of 52.03, improved 24 places to rank 145 out of 190, standing above the regional average score of 50.43 recorded for sub-Saharan Africa.
Emefiele observed that the CBN efforts reinforced the Presidential initiatives to improve ease of doing business in Nigeria.
Delivering the 2017 Annual Bankers Dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos at the weekend, Emefiele stated that the establishment, nurturing and administration of the Credit Bureau and the National Collateral Registry contributed in no small measure at improvement of access to credit and enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
He noted that the introduction of the transparent I&E FX Window which boosted investor’s confidence and eased market sentiments also buoyed the country’s doing business indicator.
The CBN boss explained that boost in Local Production: Due to the dogged implementation of its FX restriction on certain items, the country have recorded spectacular improvements in domestic production of most of the items.
According to him: “Local manufacturers are reporting major boosts to their revenue and profit due to the policy. To give some examples, Psaltry International Limited (PIL), an agro-allied manufacturing company based in Oyo, produces starch. Before the policy, it had few customers and plenty of backlogged inventory. Today, PIL boasts over 50 multinational clients including Nestle and Unilever. The company has saved Nigeria $7 million in foreign exchange drawdown over the two years of the policy”.
Emefiele explained further that this policy has freed Nigeria from a perennially embarrassing import: toothpicks as Baton Nigeria has taken advantage of the policy and is now producing high quality, competitive toothpicks that is 25 percent cheaper than their Chinese competition.
He said Unilever moved its blue band production facility to Ghana some years ago, which means that the country has to import this product from that country, with scarce FX, adding that as part of the gains from its policy and in line with an agreement it reached with Unilever, the company will be commissioning a new Blue Band Factory in Agbara, Ogun State early next month.
“We have also seen a sharp drop in imports of rice from several countries. To give one example, data from the Thailand’s Rice Exporters Association indicate that in 2012, about 1.2 million Metric Tonnes of rice was exported to Nigeria.
However, in 2016, which was the first full year of implementation of our policy, rice exports to Nigeria had fallen by 99 percent to only 784 Metric Tonnes. This significant reduction in imports of rice from Thailand represents a saving of over $600 million to Nigeria in 2016 alone,”. Emefiele said.
The CBN Governor noted that this fall in imports have been largely filled by a boost in local rice production, adding that employees at Labana Rice Mills in Kebbi State are trying to keep pace with demand, processing 320 tons of a rice a day, a 250 percent increase from the previous year.
He stated further that the faithful implementation of the policy had seen to the considerable decline in Nigerias import bills. From an average of about $5.5 billion, he disclosed that the nations monthly import bill had fallen consistently to $2.1 billion in 2016 and $1.9 billion by half year 2017.
On the current position of the economy, Emefiele expressed delight that the Nigerian economy had recorded positive growth after five consecutive quarters of negative growth, thereby signaling its exit from recession. He also noted the downward trend in headline inflation from 18.72 per cent in January 2017 to the September 2017 figure of 15.98.
The CBN Governor expressed satisfaction with the appreciation of the Naira from over N500/$1 to about N360/ $1.
Emefiele noted that the economy had seen stability in the exchange rate of the naira for over six months.
He affirmed that the exchange rate was not only stable, but was also converging across various windows and segments of the market.
