The Central Bank of Nigeria has assured Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises of improved access to credit facilities in the country.
Speaking on a five-year policy thrust, recently released by the apex bank, the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said the bank would continue to work with the Deposit Money Banks to improve access to credit for smallholder farmers andMSMEs.
Emefiele said, “Our intervention support shall be extended to our youth population who possess entrepreneurship skills in the creative industry. This group deserves our encouragement. We shall also during this intervening period, encourage our Deposit Money Banks to direct more focus in supporting the Education Sector.”
He explained that the CBN would grow the external reserves and support efforts at diversifying the economy through its intervention programmes in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
He said that the decisions by the monetary policy committee on inflation and interest rates would be dependent on insights generated from data on key economic variables.
“We would also strive to continue to sustain a positive interest rate regime to the delight of our important stakeholders. Monetary policy measures embarked upon by the CBN will be geared towards containing inflationary pressures and supporting improved productivity in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors,” he said.
Emefiele assured that the apex bank would be working with other stakeholders to achieve results. “We intend to bring down the cost of food items, which have considerable weight in the Consumer Price Index basket. Our ultimate objective is to anchor the public’s inflation expectations on the agricultural and manufacturing sectors,” he noted.
He observed that working closely with the fiscal authorities would improve economic variables. “We pledge to target a double digit growth by the next five years, and at the CBN, we commit to working assiduously to bringing down inflation to single digit; while accelerating the rate of employment,” he said.
Emefiele added, “Put succinctly, our priorities at the CBN, over the next five years, are to preserve domestic macroeconomic and financial stability, to foster the development of a robust payment system and infrastructure that will increase access to finance for all Nigerians, thereby raising the financial inclusion rate in the country.
“Others are to grow our external reserves, to support efforts at diversifying the economy through our intervention programs in the
agriculture and manufacturing sectors. We are confident that, when implemented, these measures will help to insulate our economy from potential shocks in the global economy.”
The CBN boss also said that the apex bank would work with the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System, Banks and Fintechs, in developing a regulatory sandbox.
“This sandbox will enable us to test financial innovations by Fintechs and Banks in a controlled environment, in order to assess its impact on the growth and safety of our financial system,” he
added.
He said, to complement the progress made so far as well as the lesson learnt from the conduct of previous programs, “we intend to strengthen the capacity building arm of the Anchor Borrowers Program, which will help support better farming practices and higher outputs for farmers. Through the credit bureaus, we will also leverage technological tools such as analytics in identifying and supporting farmers that have exhibited good credit behaviour, in repayment of their loan obligations.”
