Nigerian inflation rate declines to 13-month low

Nigeria’s inflation rate fell for a fifth consecutive in June even as food-price growth surged.

Inflation eased to 16.1 percent from 16.3 percent in May, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said in an emailed report Monday. The median of 15 economists’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for 16 percent. Prices rose 1.6 percent in the month.

Inflation has been above the upper end of the central bank’s target band of 6 percent to 9 percent for two years. Governor Godwin Emefiele kept the main policy rate at a record high of 14 percent since last July to fight price growth and support the naira even as the economy has contracted for five consecutive quarters. It will next review the rate on July 25. Emefiele said last month tight monetary policy will continue.

The average gasoline price rose 1.2 percent in June from a year earlier compared with a 10.3 percent increase in May, the statistics office said in a separate report. Food inflation accelerated to 19.9 percent from 19.3 percent, driven by the cost of bread and cereals, meat, fish and potatoes, agency said.

“What we think drove inflation down is the high base effect,” Pabina Yinkere, an analyst at Vetiva Capital Management, said by phone from Lagos. “Inflation is going to be around for a while driven by food prices. We are going into harvest season nonetheless, so numbers will continue to come down.”

A dollar shortage in Africa’s biggest oil producer has contributed to price growth as importers resorted to buying hard currency on the black market at a higher cost. Investors blamed the central bank for compounding the crisis by tightening capital controls and trying to prevent further weakening of the naira, which they said contributed to the economy contracting in 2016 for the first time in 25 years.

Comments

Understanding Prof. Yemi Osinbajo - Abraham Ogbodo

Abraham Ogbodo I am trying to understand Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Often, he speaks out of character. That is, he talks as if he is Vice President before he is a professor of law, even when I know that the latter comes first. The man wasn’t like this when he was the attorney general of Lagos State and a teacher at the Law Faculty of the University of Lagos. Then, his statements were measured and as a seasoned lawyer, based on facts. But today, Osinbajo is sounding like Adams Oshiomhole, a union leader, who by the grace of God, became governor of Edo State for eight years. The revelations about big thefts in the economy had come more from Adams than even Ibrahim Magu, chairman of the EFCC. It was Adams who said former petroleum minister; Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke alone stole 13 billion British pounds from the national treasury. That is like saying she stole in raw cash almost twice as much as the entire fortune of Alhaj...

FG borrows N3.38bn To Aid Potato Production in Plateau

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) wednesday approved N3.38 billion to boost the production of potatoes in Plateau State. The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, who made the disclosure said the money would be borrowed from Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) with one per cent interest rate and 25 years moratorium. The minister who said the loan was not fresh, explained that it had previously been cancelled by the federal government with the intention to make a fresh request for the loan on behalf of Plateau State which she said was responsible for 95 per cent of potato production in the country. According to her, following ADB’s comprehensive programme on potato production in Plateau State, 100,000 families and 17 local government areas of Plateau State would benefit from the loan while 60,000 jobs would be created by the initiative. “My approval was on behalf of Plateau State to support the potato value chain. There is a loan that we had previously cancelled from ...

Much ado about the foreign reserves - Nonso Obikili

I have received a lot of questions about the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) foreign reserves recently. The CBN has of course been touting the reserves growing from a low of about $24bn to the approximately $42bn it is now. The questions typically centre around why we are keeping so much in reserve when the economy is struggling, and we have poor infrastructure? Why don’t we use the reserves to reduce the poverty that is rampant? The question typically betrays a little bit of misunderstanding over what the foreign reserves are and how the entire thing works. Hopefully, after reading this we will have a better understanding of what it is and what it can and can’t be used for. First, what is the “Foreign Reserves?” It is the amount of foreign exchange that the central bank has at its disposal at any point in time. Some of this is in cash and some in other liquid assets, that is assets that can quickly be turned to cash. Some of this is in US dollars but sometimes it’s in other c...

ATTENCAO

Search This Blog