The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has disclosed its plan with the Bankers’ Committee to commit a minimum of N500 billion in loans to export-oriented firms in a bid to enhance non-oil export earnings.
Governor Godwin Emefiele of the central bank made this disclosure at a press briefing to close the 2022 Bankers’ Committee Retreat in Lagos.
Revealing also that the CBN would commit an additional $100 million to complete the second phase of the ongoing rehabilitation of the National Theatre, Emefiele vowed that the apex bank would continue to support banks with the foreign exchange (FX) needs of their customers because of the gains recorded from the RT200 programme.
His words: “In an attempt to boost the volume of export repatriations, there is a need to continue to support our exporters who may need facilities either to bring in equipment with which they can process their goods and make them a high standard that can qualify for export abroad and earn higher value.
“So the bankers’ committee decided that every year and it should be measurable, the entire banking industry must grant at least a minimum of N500 billion in loans to export-oriented companies that will generate measurable export receipts and non-oil export proceeds that will complement what the CBN is doing.
“The CBN will come up with modalities where it will insist that bank A should grant a minimum of X amount in export loans and naturally the big banks will have to take a bigger share of this pie. But we also see that the big banks have made tremendous progress and contribution towards the repatriation that we have seen so far on RT 200.”
