Today’s News Highlights on Monetary Policy Rate | Naira Redesign | North-East Oil Project | Fuel Scarcity | Capital Market Master Plan

Here are your top 5 business news  items for the day 23rd November, 2022.

Today’s Business News Highlights on Monetary Policy Rate | Naira Redesign | North-East Oil Project | Fuel Scarcity | Capital Market Master Plan

Monetary Policy Rate

16.5% interest rate: Private sector predicts factories shutdown, higher bad loans

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria has raised the benchmark interest rate from 15.5 to 16.5 per cent in order to rein in inflation and maintain economic stability.

Speaking at the end of a two-day Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday in Abuja, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the committee voted to raise the rate to 16.5 per cent while retaining the asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the benchmark interest rate, also known as the monetary policy rate.

He said the MPC also voted to retain the cash reserve ratio at 32.5 per cent and the liquidity ratio at 30 per cent. Operators in the nation’s manufacturing sector saw their combined debts to Nigerian banks rise from N4.09tn in December 2021 to N5.1tn in September 2022, according to the CBN’s Sectoral Analysis of Deposit Money Banks’ Credit.

This showed that they borrowed the sum of N1.01tn between December 2021 and September 2022.With the increase in debts, stakeholders have maintained that the current double-digit lending rate was unfavorable as it had a direct impact on the cost of production and the competitiveness of the sector."

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 Naira Redesign

New naira notes for circulation before Dec 15

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has announced that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, will unveil the new naira notes during the weekly Federal Executive Council at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday.

He also said the new notes would go into circulation before the December 15, 2022 date earlier stated by the central bank. He made the announcement during a press briefing held after the Monetary Police Committee meeting in Abuja.

Meanwhile, the Director of Information Technology at the CBN, Rakiyat Mohammed, said that about 36 million Nigerians currently had zero access to financial services. Mohammed, who spearheaded the development and deployment of the eNaira, stated this on Tuesday during the Zenith Bank Tech Fair which was held in Lagos.

Delivering her presentation at the Fair which is themed ‘Future Forward,’ she said the CBN was the first Central Bank in Africa and second in the world to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency.

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 North-East Oil Project

Buhari inaugurates $3bn oil exploration project in North-East

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday, flagged off the commercial production of crude oil and gas from the $3bn Kolmani Integrated Development Project. Located along the fields of Gombe and Bauchi, the Kolmani project, with Oil Prospecting Licence 809 and 810, lie in the Gongola Basin of the Upper Benue Trough, straddling the two northern states.

The field, according to its promoters, will produce about 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day and holds over one billion barrels of crude oil reserves, shooting up Nigeria’s oil reserves to over 38 billion barrels.

This came as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited revealed that it had identified several drillable prospects in the area, as it noted that it was also making an oil exploration re-entry into the Chad Basin.

In his address at the event, Buhari said the Kolmani River field attracted $3bn worth of investments despite the lack of appetite in the oil sector in recent times. He said, “Considering the landlocked location and the huge capital requirement, the economics of the project is a challenging proposition.

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Fuel Scarcity

Fuel queues resurface in Lagos, marketers blame depots

Long queues surfaced in Lagos on Tuesday as motorists spent hours at filling stations while waiting to buy the product. The situation was worse in Ikosi-Ketu, Arepo area of New Lagos, Obalende, Maryland and Iju-shaga in Lagos State.

Commuters lamented the hike in prices of transportation fares in the state on Monday and Tuesday, as petrol was sold between N195 and N200 per litre. Queues were also reported along the Alausa Secretariat road, as the NNPC (former Oando) was closed to motorists.

The same situation was also noticed at Total filling stations in Ojota and Palm Grove. Stations such as Mobil and Fatgbems along Berger also had long queues and sold at N200/litre. Long queues were also reported at Lekki. Heyden filling station at Ilupeju, though sold fuel, had a long queue of vehicles waiting to buy the product. 

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria blamed it on the depots and the increasing difficulty in accessing petroleum products. National Controller, Operations, IPMAN, Mike Osatuyi, told The PUNCH in an interview that members of the association could not get sufficient products at the depots.

"No fuel. Even when we were able to get small quantity, DAPPMAN sold it to us at N200/N202 per litre. By the time we transport it to our stations, the cost would be around N210/litre,” he said.

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Capital Market Master Plan

Finance Minister to Launch Revised Capital Market Master Plan

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Ahmed is to launch the Revised Capital Market Master Plan that is expected to be the Roadmap for the capital market for the next few years.

This is also as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has scheduled to hold the third quarter Capital Market Committee Meeting. The 10-Year Master Plan, which was launched in 2014 is being revised to reflect the dynamism of the market and developments in financial technology, among others.

 According to the Director General of the SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, the Revised Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025 (RCMMP), developed by the Securities and Exchange Com- mission (SEC) Nigeria in collaboration with stakeholders, captures the challenges of our capital market in actualizing its role to drive national economic growth and more importantly, provides a blueprint to harness these opportunities to better position the capital market as the engine of our economic growth and development. Yuguda said, “.

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