The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released N21bn to increase the production and export of cocoa and sesame seeds in Nigeria.
According to the bank, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this at the last Monetary Policy Committee while reviewing the performance of its intervention schemes targeted at stimulating productivity in agriculture, manufacturing, industries, energy, and infrastructure, healthcare, exports, and small businesses.
He said, “The bank released the sum of N21bn under the Export Facilitation Initiative (EFI) for three projects in domestic production and value addition of cocoa and sesame seed.
“This intervention is targeted at further expansion of the economy’s non-oil export basket towards improving foreign exchange revenue earnings for the country.”
The CBN approved the commencement of the EFI in a circular to all banks in 2019 to complement the government’s efforts to engender growth in the non-oil sector of the economy as well as enhance foreign earnings and employment generation.
Under the initiative, the local commodities for value chain development were cashew, cocoa, palm oil, sesame seed, and shea. The funding is meant to increase capacity in the industry for export and foreign exchange generation.
EFI ensures a single-digit interest rate and up to three years moratorium period. According to the features, it attracts no obligor limit applicable, the loan tenor is up to 10 years, and the loan can be for land acquisition and cultivation, milling and refinery capacity or smallholder farmers’ aggregation.
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