Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele on Sunday revealed that the country’s foreign reserves has hit US$47.93 billion.
The governor as well also restated Nigeria’s positive growth outlook, noting that a growth of 2.5 per cent had been projected by the IMF and World Bank for Nigeria.
“There is need to save for the raining day and also continue to grow the foreign reserves. If we had enough reserves, we wouldn’t have suffered the recession shocks,” he explained at a joint press briefing at the end of the 2018 International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington DC, United States.
He assured that concerted efforts were ongoing to realise the 80 per cent target for financial inclusion by 2020.
Also, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, who noted that the present growth outlook contrasted with the outlook in 2015, stated that inflation rate was slowing down while the foreign reserves were rising.
While being optimistic on the Federal Government’s sustenance of the growth trajectory, the Minister however called for vigilance and focus for the country not to fall back into recession.
She said, “We are confident that if we diligently implement our economic plan, we will grow the economy. We have room to grow but other countries do not have rooms to grow.
“By 2019, the growth will be far more robust than the present level in 2018. We are therefore very optimistic in sustaining Nigeria’s economic growth. We are going to use this opportunity to grow our fiscal buffers, particularly aggressively growing our revenue base.
“The Administration has succeeded in building macroeconomic resilience for Nigeria, particularly revising the funding mix, rebuilding fiscal buffers, enhancing foreign exchange reserves and focusing on import substitution strategies.”
