- In the face of dipping oil prices – Nigeria’s official exchange rate has slumped over 20 per cent in the last year to about 198 naira for a dollar, according to Thomson Reuters’ data. In a bid to defend its currency, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in June blocked imports of 41 items, including private jets, toothpicks and rice.
- CNBC Africa used rice from the list as a case study to examine the impact of this policy almost two months after it was implemented.
- Rice was selected as it is Nigeria’s top staple food and according to Akinwumi Adesina, who will become Africa Development Bank’s President In September and was Nigeria’s former agricultural minister, the country spends over 350 billion naira annually importing rice.
- This is as a result of local production failing to meet demand; Nigeria consumed 5 million metric tonnes of rice last year, while importing 2 million metric tonnes to meet demand for the staple food. Some reasons for the shortfall range from the quality of grains produced locally to a lack of support for local rice farmers.
- As part of CNBC Africa’s study we visited local markets and noticed the preference was not for locally produced rice – there was hardly a Nigerian bag of rice in sight; speaking to some traders in the market we found that they perceive local rice to be more expensive.
- Source: CNBC Africa
