CBN to hold MPC meeting March 25

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it will hold its 294th monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting next week.

In a statement on Wednesday, the apex bank said the meeting will be held on March 25 and March 26.

The CBN had held its last MPC meeting on February 26 and February 27. The 293rd meeting was the first since Olayemi Cardoso became the apex bank’s governor.

The MPC is the highest policy-making committee of the bank, set up to review economic and financial conditions in the economy and determine the appropriate stance of policy in the short to medium term.

The committee is also in charge of examining the CBN’s monetary policy framework and making any necessary revisions.

The meetings, held bi-monthly, are critical to the central bank’s mandate of price stability, as the committee determines the monetary policy rate (MPR) of the country.

At the last MPC meeting, the MPR, which benchmarks interest rates, was raised by 400 basis points from 18.75 percent to 22.75 percent.

The committee also increased the cash reserve ratio (CRR) from 32.5 percent to 45 percent, while retaining the liquidity rate at 30 percent.

The decisions followed an uptick in Nigeria’s inflation rate which moved to 31.7 percent in February 2024 — up from 29.9 percent in the previous month.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), food inflation also surged to 37.92 percent in the month reviewed.