By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says despite global economic downturn, the bank’s interventions in different sectors of the economy, especially the agricultural value chain are yielding positive results.
CBN Director of Development Finance Department Mr Philip Yila Yusuf stated this at the 2022 annual retreat of the Development Finance Department of the Bank with the theme “Financing for Sustainable Development in Nigeria. Success Stories, Learning Points and Way Forward,” held in Abuja on Monday.
Yila stated that despite global challenges like Russia Ukraine war which has pushed food inflation to a record high, Nigeria has overtime developed policies that will cushion the effects of these shocks.
He said “Price volatility across the world has also proven to have dire consequences especially for developing economy. The various consequences abound in food security health systems and movements as the financial sector in most economies has had major contractions and monetary policy recently have resorted to tightening to curb inflation which is also a major problem in Nigeria.
However, the CBN has been at the forefront of ensuring Nigeria achieves food security in collaboration with other fiscal authorities, also stimulating growth in collaboration with the ministry of industry.
“Food security in Nigeria has received a massive boost in the last 5 years since the CBN intervened in the sector to ensure over reliance on imported goods is reduced. We have also transversed the length and breadth of Nigeria empowering farmers and MSMEs in access to Finance and agric business as well as targeted credit facility which became a comfort for households especially during the Covid 19 pandemic” he stated.
“Tertiary institutions were not also left out as we introduced the tertiary institutions entrepreneurship skills programme for students to have skilful employment, as well as the MSME development fund and the financial inclusion drive has helped bridge gender financing gap.
By engaging in development financing, we have made remarkable difference and the agricultural sector has benefitted hugely through the Anchor Borrowers Programme and other interventions which has yielded positive results,” he said.
Earlier in her remarks, the Deputy governor in charge of Financial Systems Stability of the CBN, Aishah Ahmad said “the loans which has been disbursed by the CBN through the development finance department has impacted greatly on the sustainability of Nigeria’s agric value chain which was evident in the third quarter GDP report released by the NBS which shows a growth of 29.9 per cent growth from 21 per cent recorded in the first quarter of 2021,”.
She however urged the beneficiaries of these intervention to pay up the loans so that other people can also benefit.
Also speaking, the Governor of Jigawa state, Mohammed Badaru that the interventions by the CBN in the state increased the GDP of Jigawa state from N1 trillion in 2015 to N2.5 trillion in 2021.
He added that before the intervention in the rice value chain, Jigawa state could only produce about 192, 800 metric tons of rice but with the various interventions in the last 5 years, the state is now doing up to 1.9 million metric tons with thousands of moribund rice mills now revived.
