CBN vows to rebuild external reserves

The CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has stated that the apex bank would continue to do everything within its purview to rebuild the country’s external reserves and at the same time accelerate efforts that would help improve aggregate supply potentials of the economy.

While addressing the senate on the state of the economy yesterday in Abuja, Emefiele promised that the apex bank would continue to safeguard the nation’s foreign exchange market against the activities of speculators.

“Nigeria’s foreign reserves remain our common wealth and we must all strive to work together to protect it and prevent speculators and rent seekers from plundering it,” the CBN boss asserted.

According to him, the country’s economic fundamentals remain strong as inflation is still at single digit, exchange rate relatively stable while reserves is gradually picking up due to blocked leakages.

“I am delighted to note that with the strong efforts of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, to plug all leakages, as well as the vigilant demand management of the Central Bank, we have seen our foreign exchange reserves begin a gradual recovery. As of 7th July 2015, the reserves stood at US$31.89 billion, a trend we find very gratifying,” he noted.

The CBN boss disclosed that as a result of the sharp fall in oil prices and speculative foreign exchange activities, Nigeria’s external reserves declined from US$37.3 billion in June 2014 to US$29.1 billion as at the end of June 2015.

Nigeria’s GDP, he said, slowed to 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2015, down from 5.9 percent in the last quarter of 2014, having increased by 6.2 percent in 2014, which was occasioned by global economic developments.

Mr. Emefiele claimed, “Liquidity conditions in the financial markets remained relatively stable so far in 2015 as broad money supply (M2) grew as expected and capital adequacy at well above industry averages.