Governor Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN), has revealed that Nigeria’s monthly food import bill fell from $665.4
million in January 2015 to $160.4 million as of October 2018.
According to Emefiele, the reductions in food import
recorded on rice, fish, milk, sugar and wheat, within the 34 months, helped
Nigeria saved $21 billion.
The CBN boss made this known at the most recently-held
dinner of the apex bank.
“Noticeable declines were steadily recorded in our monthly
food import bill from $665.4m in January 2015 to $160.4m as at October 2018; A
cumulative fall of 75.9 per cent and an implied savings of over $21bn on food
imports alone over that period.
“Most evident was the 97.3 per cent cumulative reduction in monthly rice import
bills, 99.6 per cent in fish, 81.3 per cent in milk, 63.7 per cent in sugar,
and 60.5 per cent in wheat.
“We are glad with the accomplishments recorded so far.
Accordingly, this policy is expected to continue with vigour until the
underlying imbalances within the Nigerian economy have been fully resolved.”
Emefiele was quoted.
While speaking on development finance, he said that in
continued recognition of its role as an agent of development and aimed at
ensuring self-sufficiency to reduce Nigeria’s excessive dependence on imports,
the CBN invigorated its development finance activities.
Emefiele said the apex bank has since been maintaining a
particular focus on supporting farmers, entrepreneurs as well as small and
medium scale businesses, through its various intervention programmes such as
the Anchor Borrowers Program, Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for
Agricultural Lending and the National Collateral Registry.
According to him, the CBN recently introduced the Real
Sector Support fund; a facility meant to provide cheap funding at no more than
nine per cent to new projects in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors;
aimed at boosting output and creating jobs.
In the agriculture sector, Emefiele added that the Anchor
Borrower Programme, had ensured that Nigeria emerged from being a net importer
of rice to becoming a major producer of rice, supplying key markets in
neighbouring countries.
