BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR–The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday unanimously voted to raise Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50bps to 18.00% with other policy parameters unchanged.
Disclosing this, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, while reading the communiqué of the second MPC meeting of the year in Abuja today said other parameters retained were the asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR; the Cash Reserve Ration (CRR) at 32.50%; and the Liquidity Ratio at 30%.
The apex bank boss said the apex bank’s tightening measures had started to address inflationary pressure.
“We believe that as we continue this process that inflation will eventually begin to trend downwards,” he said.
“Whether we like it or not, between now and May, or the end of the administration, we will expect that subsidy will disappear. Subsidy removal has its own implication on prices which is inflation, so we are not optimistic that prices will continue to come down because of these measures but we feel we need to continue to tighten.”
Details soon….
