Emefiele to Unveil 2019 Monetary Policy Direction
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, will next week unfold the Bank’s plans for 2019 year, during the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled for January 21 to 22.
The Director, Corporate Communications at the CBN, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, disclosed this in a statement.
Also, Okorafor confirmed the CBN’s injection of the sum of $263 million into the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS), being its first intervention in that sector this year. This was in addition to the sum CNY 39 million consummated through a combination of spot and short-tenored forwards, arising from bids received from authorised dealers. The figures obtained from the CBN revealed that the US dollar-denominated interventions were for requests in the agricultural and raw materials sectors while the Yuan sale was for payment of Renminbi-denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials.
Okorafor, said the move was in furtherance of Emefiele’s avowed commitment to ensuring foreign exchange liquidity in the system as well as boosting trade and production.
With the rates closing at N359/$1 last Friday, Okorafor, expressed confidence that the CBN, in the weeks ahead, would sustain its intervention through the sale of foreign exchange to all segments of the market to meet all legitimate foreign exchange demand in the market while also striving to achieve exchange rate stability in the market.