The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Thursday, October 12, 2023, announced, among other policy issues, the lifting of foreign exchange restrictions hitherto placed on the importation of 43 items.

1. Why was there a restriction?

On June 23, 2015, the CBN issued Circular TED/FEM/FPC/GN/01/010, which put 41 product categories on a list of items not valid for FOREX in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange market.

Two more product categories were added in subsequent years, bringing the total of imported product categories restricted from accessing FX to 43.

The restriction aimed at reducing foreign exchange demand for products that could be locally produced, improve employment generation and conserve foreign reserves.

The items were Rice, Cement, Margarine, Palm kernel, Palm oil products, Vegetable oils, Meat and processed meat products, Vegetables and processed vegetable products; Poultry and processed poultry products; Tinned fish in sauce (Geisha)/sardine; Cold rolled steel sheets; Galvanized steel sheets; Wheelbarrows; Head pans; Metal boxes and containers; Enamelware; Steel drums; Steel pipes, Wire rods (deformed and not deformed); Iron rods; Reinforcing bars; Wire mesh; Steel nails; Security and razor fencing and poles; Wood particle boards and panels; Wood fiberboards and panels; Plywood boards and panels; Wooden doors; Toothpicks; Glass and glassware; Kitchen utensils, Tableware; Tiles-vitrified and ceramic; Gas cylinders; Woven fabrics; Clothes; Plastic and rubber products; Polypropylene granules; Cellophane wrappers and bags; Soap and cosmetics; Tomatoes/tomato pastes, and Eurobond/foreign currency bond/share purchases.

2. Was there an import ban on these products?

No. There was only a restriction on buying FOREX in the official market to import these items.

3. Why is the CBN now lifting the restrictions?

i. The restrictions pushed importers into the parallel market, contributing to the surplus demand for FOREX. This weakened the parallel-market exchange rate, pushing up prices.

ii. The CBN wants to promote orderliness and professional conduct by all Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market participants to ensure market forces determine exchange rates on a Willing Buyer – Willing Seller principle.

iii. The CBN wants a unified market for FOREX with flexible and transparent pricing.

iv. The CBN wants to ensure price stability and is seeking to boost liquidity in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market. As liquidity improves, we expect the distortions to moderate.

4. What are the implications of removing the FX restriction?

i. Monetary Policy tools become more effective with the attainment of a unified, well-functioning market for FX, where pricing is based on a willing-buyer and willing-seller system. With this, the CBN’s core functions and mandates become realisable.

ii. The willing-buyer and willing-seller system allows the exchange rate to adjust to clear the market and ensure that there is always supply. In recent months, the widening premium between the official rate and the parallel market indicates that the rate has not been setting a clearing price.

iii. Importers of these products rely on the parallel market to source FX for importing these goods. This puts additional demand pressures on the parallel market, thereby widening the gap with the official rate and permanently segmenting the market. Removing these restrictions eliminates the need for importers of these products to go to the parallel market, reducing the pressure on the naira.

iv. The hitherto FX restrictions had implications on inflation, causing the prices of affected goods to increase.

5. How does this benefit local production?

i. Local production will benefit from cheaper imported inputs, and consumers will benefit from cheaper retail products. The policy is suitable for a unified FOREX market and positive as well for inflation.

ii. It is expected that employment generation will be boosted as closed factories re-open. Price stability will benefit the economy and the standard of living in general.

Seefinish:
The same party that banned those products is the same party that lift the ban.
APC has nothing good to offer the country.
The two presidents INEC forced on us from APC don't have traceable ancestry and educational qualifications.

Penguin2:
Placing FX restrictions on these products was well intentioned but I guess other variables made it become unattainable for now.

The CBN is therefore right to lift the restriction for now so that the importers of those items will not be putting pressure in the black market which adds pressure to the Naira.

It’s an intricate situation really.

KillIgbohoN0W:
By Bamidele Ogunwusi



Source: Independent


Mynd44 nlfpmod

fregeneh:
hmmm well intension? I thought it was because BUHARI was wicked,useless,worthlessclueless,tautless and above all hate/trying to purnish IGBO.

MissWords:
That party?

blabulu2000:

blabulu2000:
is the definition of Settler colonialism and the "Lebensraum" project of the Zikist Igbos over the rest of Nigeria most especially Yorubaland.

They tell you to join them to k:ill Yoruba political leaders in order to create a new Nigeria but replace them with who? Igbos of course!
For every Gbajabiamila you remove, they will be replaced by one kenechukwu Osuji.

They are ready to burn down Nigeria than to stop their morbid, rabid and toxic obsession for political power in Yorubaland at all cost.

While Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo were advocating for regional or confederal Nigeria, Zik was advocating for a unitarist constitution and system of government before 1960. Azikwe wanted his people to rule Yorubaland badly that he was ready to create chaos in Nigeria to achieve that.

Till today, the sons of Zik still publicly cvrse Awolowo for stopping their patriarch from Igbonizing YORUBALAND. What Zik could not achieve by becoming the premier of Yorubaland, he started implementing it through federal power. He used his power in the federal government to start appointing Igbos as the Vice chancellors of universities in Lagos and Ibadan. The railway corporations in the West was heavily igbonized and federal offices in the Western region was filled with Azikiwe's kinsmen. Imagine what this ma:d man would have done if he had access to the keys of the treasury in the western region? The chaos Azikwe created in Yorubaland was so much to the extent that Awolowo had to start building a Yoruba university from the scratch currently called Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife.

Those who assasinated Aare Ladoke Akintola at the political capital of YORUBALAND in Ibadan, so that they can pave way for the current unitary system of government that has ravaged the lives of ethnic nationalities within Nigeria are currently scheming at every elections on how to take over political offices and power from Yoruba people in Yorubaland.

This is the definition of evil. While their current leader Peter Obi who is nothing but a empty nu:isnace continues to incite anarchy against the president of Nigeria who is a Yoruba man, another local Peter Obi like Kenechukwu Osuji is scheming to replace Femi Gbajabiamila. All their lives, they have always coveted anything the Yoruba people have or possess. Our land, our waters, resources, our culture, our heritage, our economic space, political space and even our dressings should be theirs by lies, propaganda or hiding under one Nigeria.

The problem is that, these Zikists don't know when to stop. That is why any sane and right thinking individual will understand that the biggest beneficiaries of the current unitary system of government are Igbos. This is because it gives unfettered access to the economic and political spaces of other ethnic nations outside their ethnic space. The same people who quickly formed ESN against "Fulanis" because of the protection of the political and economic space in Igboland will tell you 1000 and 1 reasons why kenechukwu must be Governor of Lagos state and why Shinedu must be the senator of Ogun state.

The ethnic minorities talkless of the Hausa-Fulanis will not condone this evil in their midst.

Nigeria is an ethnically heterogeneous country made up of different Geopolitical zones and the Southwest will not be the victim of the machinations and Zionist settler colonialist agenda of Zikist Igbos who sponsor constant Yoruba hate on social media and orthodox media in Nigeria.

All Yorubas within the Southwest and outside the Southwest of Nigeria should come together to see the evil that is unfolding once again in YORUBALAND.

We are dealing with a group who believe that their roadmap to political power in Nigeria is to deyorubanize Yoruba states and space by capturing political power from the Indigenous Yoruba population by lies, subterfuge, uncontrolled migration, unitary system of government or by cloning themselves into Yoruba politics by adopting Yoruba names