Nairametrics| Data recently released have shown exactly how much foreign exchange manufacturing firms were able to access through the deposit money banks. The data on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) website showed that in November 2016, 20 firms received the largest share of $322.79 million. Of these, 12 companies were in the non-oil sector. Here is a breakdown of how much each firm obtained.
- Crown Flour Mills $52.5 million
- Watcot Limited $24 million
- C Technology Distribution $21.2 million
- British American Tobacco Limited $19.85 million
- IHS Towers of Strength $19.6 million
- IPI Powertech Nigeria Limited $17.1 million
- Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc $15.64 million
- Dangote Sugar Refinery $14.79 million
- Tiger Branded Consumer Goods Plc $14.79 million
- Edo Cement Company Limited $10.3 million
- Stanbic Nominees $8.9 million
- De United Foods Plc $7.83 million
However, the manufacturers continue lamenting the non-implementation of the 60% forex allocation to the manufacturing sector, citing this as one of the deterrents to economic growth.
MAN president, Dr. Frank Jacobs, lamented “The implementation has been very poor. We had a meeting with the CBN Governor where he said there was a directive to commercial banks to allocate 60 per cent of the forex to manufacturers, but after engaging the commercial banks we were told they source for forex from alternative sources and not from the CBN so the apex bank cannot decide who the commercial banks must make forex available to. Government should make more foreign exchange available if it really wants the 60 per cent allocation of forex to manufacturers to materialise.”
