Yemisi Izuora
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),has said that government is taking seriously its economic diversification initiative and is determined to put to an end unnecessary importation of products.
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, also gave assurance that the country will continue to meet its financial obligations to foreign investors and her international trading partners.
Emefiele while addressing members of the German Business Delegation in his office noted that Nigeria is currently going through economic crisis, as a result of crashing oil prices which has caused severe shortfall in foreign exchange revenue.
The Governor said with current challenge the country is left with no option than to diversify the production base of the Nigerian economy and do away with frivolous importation.
He craved for the understanding of the visiting team regarding the policies put in place in order to conserve foreign exchange and assured them of CBN’s effort to meet their demands within the available forex resources.
Leader of the team, Vice Minister and Member of Parliament, Mr Uwe Beckmeyer of German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, said that the essence of the visit was to familiarize themselves with developments in the Nigeria’s financial sector and to devise means of articulating business relationship between the German business firms and the their Nigerian counterparts.
Mr. Beckmeyer reiterated that members of his team with interest in such areas as power generation, light machines for Small and Medium Enterprises were having some challenges in sourcing inputs for their production as well as the issue of double taxation.
He said German companies doing business in Nigeria would appreciate to be assured of the certainty in areas of currency control as it affects profit remittances.