Nigeria’s Central Bank governor, Olayemi Cardoso is assuring that the climbing Inflation and Exchange Rates will drastically decline in 2024 l, but for November inflation rate rose again dampening hopes of improvement.
As the hardship of the Christmas and Mew Year festive season bites harder, the figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) are worrisome.
But at a meeting with federal lawmakers in the Joint Senate and House Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Cardoso was upbeat for next year, despite the gloom on Nigerian faces and the NBS figures.
The CBN boss said: “The outlook for the domestic economy remains positive and expected to maintain the positive trajectory for 2024.
“Inflation pressures may persist in the short-term but is expected to decline in 2024. Exchange rate pressures are also expected to reduce significantly with the smooth functioning of foreign exchange market”.
According to him, and against the grain of available statistics, the unification of the exchange rate windows in June 2023, has ushered in a new approach to the management of the exchange rate, aimed at reducing arbitrage, rent seeking behaviour and speculation in the market.
“The policy aims at creating a market where the demand and supply of foreign exchange determines the exchange rate.
“The premium has narrowed and our focus on increasing the autonomous FX supply , would lead to more stability and further narrowing of the premium.
“Total Trade in the third quarter of 2023, stood at N18.804.68billion. Exports were valued at N10.346.60b while total imports stood at N8.457.68b. This represents positive trade balance, which would lead to increase of the external reserves “, he stated.
He, however adds a dampener: “We expect less revenue from oil exports due to the production limit of 1.78mbpd in 2024. OPEC approved quota for Nigeria is 1.8mbpd, which is higher than the 2024 budget assumption .
“However, the country ‘s production has been below these thresholds. The budget benchmark for 2023 was 1.69mbpd, but the highest level of production during the year, was about 1.35mbpd in Q3 of 2023.
“The reasons for the underperformance of the oil production target , include , crude oil theft and pipeline vandalization , production shut – ins and divestments by major oil companies.“
Elsewhere, NBS figures show that headline inflation rate increased to 28.20 per cent in November from 27.33 per cent in October 2023.
The rise is the 11th time inflation is in the northward direction, amid assurances from government officials that things are getting better