After taking $2.4bn loan in 2018, Nigeria approaches World Bank again for fresh $2.5bn loan

The Nigerian government has approached the World Bank for a fresh loan of $2.5 billion.

Vice-President for the African division of the World Bank, Hafez Ghanem, revealed that they were in talks with Nigeria on the concessionary loan.

He noted that Nigeria had received $2.4bn from the global financial institution in 2018. “We’re talking about a new set of programs of about the same amount, it should be around $2.5 billion,” he added.

“It’s important to resolve the problems of the power sector in Nigeria to bring in more investments because you need to bring down the cost of power to make the economy more competitive for the development of industries.

“Nigeria has a comparative advantage in that area because of the youth, a majority of the population is young. So if we want to create jobs, we need to invest much more in the digital economy,”Ghanem said.

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With domestic debt at $55.6bn and foreign loans at $25.6bn, Nigeria has continued to seek more credit with low interest and long repayment periods from institutions including the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

Ghanem said, “the current economic performance of Nigeria is not enough to reduce poverty, we need to accelerate growth.”

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