SAN FRANCISCO, October 30, (THEWILL) – Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has again reiterated that there would be no further devaluation of the Naira, saying such plan was not on the card of the apex bank.
Emefiele stated this in Abuja while chatting with State House correspondents, saying the Naira had already been devalued from N155 to N197 in February .
”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.
“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 Central Bank of Nigeria that we are not considering any further depreciation of the currency,” he said.
He however disclosed that the apex bank was trying to concentrate on how to improve and deepen the foreign exchange market by improving supply of foreign exchange into the market.
“To do so we are trying to encourage people to export and earn export proceeds and use the 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. So that is our focus.
“I’m saying and very soon the CBN will be launching a campaign called PAVE, which means ‘Produce locally, add value and export your product and earn your foreign exchange for your imports’ because this is the only way we can support the efforts of CBN in intervening and providing foreign exchange in the market to meet the import needs of our 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,” he explained.
On the list of items already banned from being imported the country, Emefiele said: “First of all, the CBN does not have the power to ban the import 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.”
