Olusola Bello
The Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele on Thursday announced a programme that targets to repatriate $200 billion mainly from non-oil exports over the next three to five years.
According to the governor, the RT200 FX Programme targets increased exports, value addition and improved foreign exchange for the government.
The CBN Governor who made the announcement while briefing on the outcome of the Banker’s Committee meeting in Abuja, also stated that another segment of the plan includes a non-oil rebate scheme, a central warehousing scheme as well as a concessionary and long term funding for non-oil exporters.
“After careful consideration of the available options and wide consultation with the Banking Community, the CBN is, effective immediately, announcing the Bankers’ Committee ‘RT200 FX Programme’, which stands for the ‘Race to US$200 billion in FX Repatriation,’” Emefiele said.
“The RT200 FX Programme is a set of policies, plans and programmes for non-oil exports that will enable us attain our lofty yet attainable goal of US$200 billion in FX repatriation, exclusively from non-oil exports, over the next 3-5 years.”
Emefiele noted that while the goal itself may appear unattainable to some, he was resolute that it could be achieved.
“Many countries that are much less endowed than Nigeria are doing it,” he said.
“Consider for example that agriculture exports alone from the Netherlands was about US$120 billion last year. Yet, Netherlands has a landmass of about 42,000 square kilometers, which is much smaller that the landmass of Niger State alone, at over 76,000 square kilometers.”
He added that the programme is not intended to be a silver bullet to all the nation’s problems in the export sector.
“Rather it is a first step meant to ensure that the CBN is able to carry out its mandate in an effective and efficient manner, which guarantees preservation of our scarce commonwealth, and the stability of our national currency, the Naira,” he said.
“It is only by boosting productivity and earning capacity of this economy that we can truly preserve the long-term value of our currency, as well as the stability of our exchange rate.”
Diaspora remitatance
The Central Bank’s policies and measures have led to a significant improvement in diaspora remittances inflow.
The inflow increased from an average of US$6 million per week in December 2020 to an average of over US$100 million per week by January 2022.
According to him, diaspora remittances had fallen significantly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is understandable because to the extent that COVID-19 led to significant job losses in many advanced economies, diaspora remittances also suffered commensurate reductions in inflows into Nigeria,” he said.
“All these factors jointly explain the heightened pressures on the currencies of major emerging market countries, including Nigeria.”
However through policies such as a N1 trillion facility in loans to boost local manufacturing and production across critical sectors and the reduction of the interest rate on CBN intervention loans from 9 to 5 percent, remittances improved, Emefiele said.
Over N3trn Loans Disbursed
The bank, the governor said disbursed over three trillion Naira in intervention loans as part of efforts to facilitate economic recovery and generate employment opportunities since the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Specifically, under the Anchor Borrowers Programme, we have disbursed N948 billion to 4,478,381 smallholder farmers who cultivated 5.2 million hectares of farmland across the country, thereby creating 12.5 million direct and indirect jobs.
“Under our Targeted Credit Facility, which was meant to help households and businesses that suffered significant losses during the pandemic, we have disbursed N368.79 billion to 778,000 beneficiaries comprising 648,052 households, and about 130,000 SMEs
“Ladies and gentlemen, to date the CBN, working with our DMBs and participating financial institutions has granted over N3 trillion in intervention loans that have undoubtedly been one of the critical ingredients for our economic recovery and employment generation,” he said.
“We have also disbursed N1.452 trillion to 337 Large real sector projects in agriculture, manufacturing, services, and mining under our Real Sector Support Facility.
“In healthcare, 122 major healthcare projects have been funded to the tune of N115.36 billion. These healthcare interventions went to 31 pharmaceutical and 91 hospital projects. This intervention helped to support the acquisition of 59 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners, 42 Computer Tomography (CT) scanners, and 4 Oncology screening machines.”
The CBN Governor also noted that it has worked to support small and medium enterprises in the agribusiness sector through the Agric, Small and Medium Enterprise Scheme (AGSMEIS).
“A total of N134.63 billion has been released to 37,571 SME projects of which 67 percent were directly in agriculture-related projects, 22.5 percent were in services, while the balance was in fashion, IT, and related sub-sectors,” Mr Emefiele said of AGSMEIS.
“Under the Nigeria Electricity Stabilization Facility, a total of N229 billion has been disbursed to 9 DisCos to help cover their financial obligations to upstream market participants. These interventions have helped to significantly improve liquidity in their ecosystem and increase electricity generation from 4,000 MW in 2020 to over 5,000 MW as of September 2021.
“The Bank has also released N47.83 billion to 10 DisCos under the National Mass Metering Programme for the procurement of 858,026 electricity meters. Because of these disbursements, the revenue collection for DisCos increased significantly to over N69 billion as of December 2021.”
He reiterated that the loans have helped to stabilise the economy.
“It is important that I went through these numbers painstakingly to show that the problems we face in this country do have solutions as long as we work objectively to understand them and dispassionately to solve them,” he said.
“It is obvious from the foregoing that the impact of these measures helped the country make the fastest recovery from recession ever recorded and changed the trajectory of inflation to an 8-month downward spiral.”