Mr Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, said on
Friday that the apex bank had no intention to devalue the nation’s
currency.
He told State House correspondents that the last devaluation took place in February and would remain so for now.
“There has been a lot of talk on whether or not we want to depreciate our currency again.
“The truth is that we had adjusted the currency by depreciating it from N155 to N197 in February this year.
“There is no intention to depreciate or adjust the currency any longer’’, he said.
According to him, “the President has been very clear on this; the
Vice President has been very clear on this and let me further reiterate
our position at the CBN that we are not considering any further
depreciation of the currency.’’
He said the focus of the bank was how to deepen the foreign exchange market to make it viable.
“What we are trying to concentrate on right now is how to improve and
deepen the foreign exchange market by improving supply of foreign
exchange into the market.
“And to do so, we are trying to encourage people to export and earn
your export proceeds and use your export proceeds to import whatever you
need to import.
“We are also concentrating on how to reduce the import of items that we can produce in the country today.’’
Emefiele said that very soon the CBN would be launching a campaign
called PAVE, which means “Produce locally, add value and export your
product and earn your foreign exchange for your imports.’’
He said the campaign was the only way producers could support the
efforts of CBN in intervening and providing foreign exchange in the
market to meet the import needs of the people.
“It is very clear, what we need to do is reduce our propensity to
import but we will not depreciate our currency. For now we will not.’’
On the list of items in the import prohibition list, he said had no power to ban the importation of any item.
“What we have done is to exclude certain items that are imported into
the country from obtaining foreign exchange from the Nigerian foreign
exchange market.
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