Saturday, February 22, 2025 - The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) aims to bring inflation down to single digits in the medium to long term, according to the governor, Olayemi Cardoso.
Speaking in Abuja after the 299th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)
meeting, Cardoso addressed the recent rebasing of the Consumer Price Index
(CPI), which lowered Nigeria’s inflation rate from 34.8 percent to 24.8
percent. He emphasized that the new inflation figures better reflect the
country's economic reality and align with global best practices.
“Despite the positive shift in inflation figures, the MPC opted to
maintain the current MPR to ensure sustained economic stability,” he said. “As
always, we are data-driven. What we have is a CPI which is more reflective of
the consumption pattern. To that extent, one commends the NBS for bringing this
to reality.”
The CBN governor reiterated the bank’s commitment to closely monitoring
both domestic and global risks, ensuring proactive measures to safeguard the
economy. “We will certainly stay that course. We will be vigilant. We will not
take anything for granted,” he stated.
Acknowledging that inflation has remained high for too long, Cardoso
reaffirmed the bank’s objective of bringing it down to single digits over time.
“Our objective, in the medium to long term, is to ensure that we are able to
bring this down from the double digits to the single digit,” he said. “As we
continue with the policies that we have embarked upon, we believe that the road
of travel will be in that direction.”
He stressed that achieving this goal would require stronger cooperation
between monetary and fiscal authorities. “I will be deceiving you to say the
fiscal will do it on its own, the monetary will do it on its own. It won’t be,”
he noted. “Coordination has always been important. But at no time can it be as
important, in my view, as the situation we have now, because we can see change
in a positive direction, and we need to not only maintain and hold but also
improve it.”
According to Cardoso, the recent monetary policy forum, which brought
together both fiscal and monetary authorities, marked a significant step toward
better coordination and economic stability.
On Nigeria’s external reserves, he revealed that they stood at $39.4
billion as of February 14, providing an import cover of 9.6 months for goods
and services. However, data from the CBN’s website indicated a decline, with
reserves dropping to $38.7 billion by February 19, a decrease of $261.5
million.
Despite the slight dip, Cardoso highlighted that ongoing CBN
reforms—such as the electronic foreign exchange matching system (EFEMS) and the
new foreign exchange (FX) code—have bolstered investor confidence, stabilized
the naira, and contributed to the growth of external reserves.
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