LAGOS: The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has tasked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to introduce a minimum of N200 billion refinancing facility with a single-digit interest rate over 15 years to assist investors in the nation’s economy.
Reacting to the closure of the rDAS foreign exchange (FOREX) window last week, the president of the chamber, Mr Remi Bello, said the measure has a lot of implications for the economy even when the position of the monetary authorities could not be faulted given the increasingly worrisome volatility of the market in recent months.
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cbn_building_22“The revision of the guidelines and the exclusion of some transactions at which the forex window was targeted provides support for the real sector of the economy because of their strategic importance to the development process, job creation and inclusive growth. They are, therefore, the first victims of the closure, particularly the few that had access to this window,” Bello said.
He urged the apex bank as a matter of urgency to provide the refinancing life-line to investors to enable them cope with the various challenges confronting them consequent upon the various fiscal and monetary policies being churned out by the authorities which have continued to make the operating clime less conducive for businesses.
Specifically, the LCCI canvassed for a minimum refinancing facility of N200 billion to be provided at a single-digit interest rate and 15 year tenure. He added that all critical raw materials and other imported inputs of manufacturing companies, machineries and equipment should henceforth attract zero import duty, while port charges should be waived for raw materials’ importation and machineries. He said that already many real sector investors are faced with numerous investment climate challenges which include high cost of fund, competition from unbridled smuggling and dumping of finished goods, counterfeiting and faking, high energy cost, including electricity tariffs, high cost of regulatory compliance and high transactions costs at the ports.
“A combination of monetary and fiscal measures will need to be deployed to mitigate the pressure on the affected firms and save them from going under,” he advised.
