Emefiele: Nigeria’s economy performed better than its peers due to our bespoke policies

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says Nigeria’s economy has performed far better than many of its peers, courtesy of the bespoke, homegrown and ingenious approach adopted by the bank.

Emefiele disclosed this in his opening remarks at the 2022 retreat of the MPC titled ‘Monetary policy implementation in a digitally-evolving, developing economy’, held in Lagos on Friday.

According to Emefiele, the evolution of fintechs, cryptocurrencies, digital payments, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, have changed the functioning of the financial and banking sectors, both globally and domestically.

Therefore, the urgent call for the need to rethink financial system regulation, supervision, and monetary policy implementation.

“While the innovations come with a lot of risks and uncertainties for the sectors, they also have many benefits for positive economic transformation and particularly, financial inclusion which has been the principal catalyst for inclusive growth, poverty reduction, and employment generation,” he said.

“We have seen what is happening in the global economy and we are going to be addressing those issues and see if we can chart a new course and what next we should do in the coming years to see to it that we provide monetary policy direction for the Nigerian economy.

“So, we would be expecting new ideas, new strategies on monetary policy in a digitised global economy, what we are going to be doing in light of the challenges posed by fintech, cryptocurrencies agents globally, and what direction to take.

“I can assure you that after this meeting, we would see a new improved monetary policy and a new and improved CBN that would provide direction for monetary policy in Nigeria.”

The CBN governor stressed that its policies to place Nigeria on the global map as a working economy have been effective, stating that Nigeria has withstood two recessions within four years.

“While the Nigerian economy has been engulfed with many crises, just like many other countries of the world, we have been able to relatively withstand the storm overcoming two recessions within four years and have performed far better than many of our peers, courtesy of our bespoke, homegrown and ingenious approach of adopting well thought-out and home-grown policy measures aimed at addressing our macroeconomic challenges,” he said.

“Monetary policy has been severely challenged, as its policy space narrowed significantly, in some cases, paradoxically and necessitating the need to rethink monetary policy in the context of emerging challenges and economic transformation.

“The central banking and monetary policy relevance in the digital ecosystem are sometimes challenged as the regulatory oversight functions are largely eroded or weakened by impotency of traditional tools in carrying out those functions.

“In order to ensure the relevance of monetary policy and the role of monetary authorities in the new digital world, MPC members must embrace advanced level understanding of the interplay of digitalisation with monetary policy objectives, targets, and tools.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services, surged to 18.60 percent in June 2022, up from 17.71 percent in the previous month.

This is the highest since January 2017, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

However, despite the prevailing harsh economic circumstances, President Muhammadu Buhari believes Nigeria is better prepared to cope with disruptions in the global agricultural supply chain prompted by Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war.