The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has said that the apex bank will continue to sell foreign exchange, Forex, to banks following the progress made under the Road to $200 billion non oil exports revenue programme (RT 200). Meanwhile, the Bankers Committee has announced minimum annual lending of N500 billion to exporters on the gains of the Road to $200. Emefiele said this in Lagos at a press conference on the outcome of the 13th annual Bankers Committee Retreat, held in Lagos with the theme “Increasing the Productive Base of the Nigerian Economy and Non-Oil Export Revenues.”
He said “we highlighted the tremendous progress that has been made because we recall that in the course of the year before we started the RT 200, the CBN had actually threatened the banks that they must begin to source their own FX to meet the needs of their customers and not entirely rely on central bank sources. But seeing the progress that has been made so far, we’re talking about $62 million plus $622 million plus $850 million, we are talking of almost $2 billion so far. We think that with the good progress and on the basis of the progress that we have made so far, the CBN will continue to support the market with foreign exchange, albeit as hard as it may be. We will continue to support the market while the banks themselves continue to ramp up their own sources of non-oil export that can earn FX through repatriation which they can use to fund the needs of their customers.”
Speaking on the N500 billion annual lending to exporters, the CBN Governor, said “the retreat also agreed that in an attempt to boost the volume of export repatriations, there is a need to continue to support our exporters who may need facilities either to bring in equipment with which they can process their goods and make them high standard that can qualify for export abroad and earn higher value. So the Bankers Committee decided that every year and it should be measurable, the entire banking industry must grant at least a minimum of N500 billion in loans to export oriented companies that will generate measurable export receipts, non-oil export proceeds that will complement what the CBN is doing. The CBN will come up with modalities where it will insist that bank A should grant a minimum of X amount in export loans and naturally the big banks will have to take a bigger share of this pie. But we also see that the big banks have made tremendous progress and contribution towards the repatriation that we have seen so far on RT 200. This is intended to further stimulate export financing and also encourage export of goods out of the country. So you can generate export proceeds in an exponential way. Eventually export proceeds from the non-oil sources will be high to the point where after some time it relieves the CBN of the pressure that goes to finding dollars to meet the import needs of both the banks and their customers.”
