Nigeria’s external reserves will hit $40bn in 2018 – Emefiele.

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has predicted that the nation’s external reserves will hit $40bn in 2018.

Emefiele, who gave this forecast at the weekend in Lagos during the annual bankers’ dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), said the reserves would continue to grow as they “have recovered significantly from just over $23 billion in October 2016 to over $34.3 billion as of November 3, 2017.”

In his address entitled, “Policy Options for Sustaining Nigeria’s Economic Upturn”, Emefiele updated the gathering on the economy, the apex bank’s efforts on the macroeconomic and financial policies, as well as outlook for the coming year.

The CBN boss noted that the foreign reserves grew by over $10 billion over the last 12 months, from just over $23 billion in October 2016 to over $33 billion in October 2017.

Looking into the future, he said, “if we remain resolute with our efforts, policies and actions, we can attain a foreign exchange (forex) reserves position of about $40 billion by end 2018.”

He said, “The accretion in reserves does not only reflect increased inflow but also our shrewd forex demand management strategy. When we introduced a policy restricting 41 items from our forex markets, we were called all manner of names.

Full story at Daily Post.

By Ameh Comrade Godwin.