The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has expressed concern over the impact of forex scarcity on the country’s economy.
Speaking on Saturday at the Bankers’ Committee Retreat in Lagos, Emefiele said the shortage of foreign currency was a burden on the nation’s development plans.
He also noted that Nigeria’s inflation rate had risen from 20.77 per cent in September to 21.09 per cent in October.
Emefiele stressed that the development of local industry and non-oil sectors would increase the inflow of foreign exchange into the country.
He had previously discussed the renewed interest in foreign education by Nigerians, which he said had led to an eight-fold surge in study-related foreign exchange outflows to the UK alone.
“The number of student visas issued to Nigerians by the United Kingdom alone has increased from an annual average of about 8,000 visas as of 2020 to nearly 66,000 in 2022, which implies an eight-fold surge to about $2.5 billion annually in study-related foreign exchange outflow to the UK alone,” he said.
“It is against the backdrop of the worsening mismatch between foreign exchange market demand and supply, and the need to boost foreign exchange earnings that the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee initiated the RT200 programme in February 2022.”
