Forex Shortage hurting our National Development - Emefiele calls for action

By: Damian Okonkwo

The Central Bank Governor - Godwin Emefiele has shown serious concerns over the rising forex shortage in the country, which has continuously hindered the national development, especially in 2022.

Addressing the bankers gathered during the Banker's committee retreat organized in Lagos last week's Friday, Emefiele highlighted how the rising inflations, coupled with the steady forex shortages have largely hindered economic growth and national development within the country.

Speaking further on this, he decried the high shortage of forex to meet the needs of genuine forex dealers out to importing goods into the country as well as for travelers too.

He therefore, challenged the banks to proffer solutions to the current situation and help in providing forex for their clients to solve their needs.

In his submissions, even though there is a clear shortage of foreign exchange today which is well known to all of us, yet as bankers, we are called to meet up with the needs of our clients. In his exact words:

“The market is tight and I know we dont have a choice, we will have to do something to ensure that this problem is solved.”

Proffering the way forward, he called on everyone to shift focus towards the development of the local manufacturing industries and non-oil sectors which have the capacity of attracting inflows into the country when they are exported. Stressing the urgency for shifting this focus today, Emefiele stated:

“the focus is even more germane considering the enormity of the global economic turbulence, as wave after wave of negative shocks continue to ravage many countries.”

He insisted that the main reason why this retreat was convened is to challenge bankers to shift their focus on RT200 and seek out other sources to provide foreign exchange to their clients without any need to resort to revenues from crude oil which as he stated, has fallen to zero compared to about $3 billion monthly that we generated in 2014.

He, therefore, propounded the need to diversify the country's revenue and move away from the large dependency on crude oil to attract more inflows into the country and reduce the current shortage of forex.