The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will not devalue the naira again. The Governor of the bank, Godwin Emefiele, said Friday, a day after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo gave similar commitment.
Mr. Emefiele told journalists 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.
There had been calls for the devaluation of naira in the face of economic crunch.
The International Monetary Fund and a former CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido, recently called for the depreciation of the currency.
Mr. Osinbajo said on Thursday that the government will not shift its stance.
According to Mr. Emefiele, “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,” he said.
Mr. Emefiele said 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.
