Nigerian Trade and Investment Minister Okechukwu Enelamah and CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele Discuss Dollar Supply

The Nigerian Trade and Investment Minister Okechukwu Enelamah and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele are discussing ways to ensure supplies of foreign exchange to manufacturers in the West African nation as the plunge in oil prices constricts dollar inflows.

“My minister is engaging with the central bank governor and other key stakeholders to ensure that the interests of manufacturers are taken care of” in the provision of foreign exchange, director of trade at the ministry of industry, trade and investment, Omotara Awobokun, was quoted by Bloomberg to have said in an interview.



“I am sure a lot of suggestions and initiatives are on the table,” she said in the commercial capital, Lagos.

She declined to specify what options are being considered before the government completes its proposals.

The Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria proposed to the central bank in February that it sell dollars directly to the industry group’s members at weekly auctions, bypassing commercial lenders.

The plan is an attempt to counter a shortage of foreign exchange and to save jobs, vice president of the association, Ali Madugu had
said in an interview.

Nigeria derives about two-thirds of government revenue from oil, which slumped to a 12-year-low this year. Authorities have rationed dollars and brought interbank foreign-exchange trading to a halt since February last year in a bid to prevent the naira falling. The measures have all but pegged the currency at N197-N199 per dollar. As dollars have become more scarce; the black-market exchange rate has plummeted, reaching N324 per dollar on Tuesday, according to Lagos-based Everdon Bureau de Change.

Companies have written to the ministry, expressing the difficulty they face obtaining dollars, Awobokun said.

“Manufacturing is the alternative to the dwindling oil sector” and to be able to support efforts to diversify the economy, producers need foreign exchange to import equipment, she said.

Nigeria’s industrial sector contracted in the fourth quarter of last year.