The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it has been developing home-grown policies to surmount challenges that confronted the economy in recent times.
Governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele,who made the statement Sunday said CBN would intensify its intervention in the foreign exchange (forex) market in order to ensure price stability.
Speaking on a Arise TV, Emefiele said: “over the last 10 years, the CBN had invested over N2 trillion in funding agriculture, SMEs and other manufacturers in the agriculture value chain”.
Responding to a question on why the CBN did not adopt the forex model that was adopted by Egypt, Emefiele said: “What we are doing is that we are developing home-grown solutions and I truly would not like to bring down any other country because they are adopting their own solutions.
“A couple of people have said why didn’t we adopt the Egypt model and I said they should leave us to adopt our own solutions and our own Nigerian options because we have our own peculiarities.
“Inflation in Nigeria, the CBN had a target of 6-9 per cent. Unfortunately, it grew to as high as 18 per cent, until we began to reverse it downward and I am hopeful that it is going to go down further.
“Now, compare Nigeria and Egypt. October 2016, Egypt’s inflation was 13 per cent, April 2017; Egypt’s inflation had grown to 31 per cent. I can tell you that at 18 per cent, Nigerians had been complaining that what are these people (CBN) doing.
“It got to 18 per cent and we started to take certain actions to reverse it. So, that would tell you that we are adopting our own home grown solutions and you can see whether it is working or not,” Emefiele said. (Thisday)
