Emefiele: Nigeria must build well-diversified economy to boost revenue generation

By Abubakar Yunusa, Abuja 

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says Nigeria must build a broad-based and well-diversified economy that will guarantee overall macroeconomic stability.

Godwin Emefiele, apex bank governor, said this at a seminar organised by the apex bank for finance correspondents and business editors on Saturday in Lagos.

Emefiele, represented by Osita Nwanisobi, director, corporate communication department, CBN, said the quest for building a robust economy had remained the major component of the monetary policy.

“The quest for building a more sophisticated economy and agricultural; micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs); industrial and manufacturing concerns have become the major component of our monetary policy,” he said. 

“Nigeria has largely depended on the oil sector for revenue generation over the past four decades, and the sustained decline in crude oil production has continued to negatively undermine the performance of the economy.

“Thus, there is the urgent need for a conscientious effort to diversify to other non-oil sectors.” 

The CBN governor said the apex bank had supported non-oil sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, education, power and aviation and other allied economic value chains.

He said Nigeria had become a rice-exporting country as the bank’s flagship Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) changed the long-standing dependence on imported rice.

He added that the 100 for 100 policy on production and productivity (PPP) was beginning to yield quality results.

He also said the RT200 FX scheme, designed to take advantage of Nigeria’s large domestic production to other regional markets, was targeted at increasing foreign exchange inflows to the economy and supporting exchange rate stability.

On digitalisation across all sectors, Emefiele said the bank had established various strategic initiatives and policies in the financial sector.