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Nigeria’s central bank says no going back on Forex ban for food import

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Maintaining stable exchange rate better than building foreign reserves —Emefiele

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it would not go back on President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to place a ban on Forex for food imports.

The apex bank said it had already incorporated the plan into its policy.

The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said this on Monday while reacting to the recent statement by the President regarding the issuance of forex to food importers.

Emefiele who spoke at the sideline of the presidential retreat held for ministers-designate in Abuja said the order was already in the logic of the CBN management’s foreign exchange policies.

He said: “If you recall, we started with about 41 items (food and non-food items), because we believe that those items can be produced in the country.

“As we stand today, there are about 43 items on that list and I will say substantially most of them are food items.

“We are basically saying if we have a food item that can be produced in the country, why should we waste scare foreign exchange importing those items into the country, when those can be produced in the country.

Read also: BUSINESS REVIEW: Is Buhari’s CBN directive on Forex ban for food importation a positive one?

“It is important for me to say that the attempt to misrepresent the comments of Mr. President is very unfair and unfortunate.

“What we will say from the CBN is that Mr. President has made this comment purely to strengthen the position of the CBN to say that he believes in what the CBN has been doing since 2016 and there is need for us to reinforce that going forward.

“We would aggressively go more into the list of items that are being imported into the country, items that can be produced in Nigeria.

“I will like to stress that we would ensure that more of these items will get on the list of items that are going to be restricted from accessing foreign exchange in Nigerian banking industry not just from the CBN source.”

On the possibility of amendment in the implementation, the CBN boss replied, “There will never be an amendment because the issue is this, why should we be exporting jobs to other countries?

“Today we are complaining that there is a high rate of unemployment, leading to some extent the level of insecurity in the country, why should we allow people to import food that can be produced in the country?

“We need to improve wealth in our rural communities and I am saying we will not change course, we will even be more aggressive on this programme.”

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