The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has encouraged the Central Bank of Nigeria to take steps to relieve pressure on the foreign exchange market.
The advice was given by Dr Muda Yusuf, the Chief Executive Officer of CPPE, in an interview with newsmen, on Friday, in Lagos.
Yusuf discussed strategies for increasing liquidity and stabilizing the foreign exchange market saying, “The CBN under the new leadership has taken some steps to clear the backlog and also impact on some banks; I know up to 70 percent of the backlogs have been cleared, Yusuf said.
“There are also efforts around improving exports of crude oil because if we are able to improve our output, definitely, our foreign exchange inflow will improve. So, these are steps that have been taken that should be effective,’’ he said.
The CPPE boss also expressed concern about the lack of tangible outcomes.
“How soon these will now begin to turn into concrete outcomes is a different thing; at least we have seen some impact it had on the naira with the clearing of some backlog and the impact it also had on the market.”
Yusuf remarked that food inflation was impacted and controlled by foreign exchange, insisting that the currency rate and inflation were inextricably linked.
He said he believes that if the CBN can stabilize the currency rate, Nigeria will be able to control inflation.
