ABUJA: Nigeria’s non-oil exports has dropped by N1.2 trillion, and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s governor, Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed this yesterday at a conference in Abuja on “Growing Nigeria’s Non-oil Exports,” blamed the decline on the low level of export loans from the banking sector.
According to him, available statistics showed that whereas credit to non-oil exports had been declining in the last five years, credit to the economy had been on the increase.
The CBN governor, who put the total credit to non-oil exports at 0.6 per cent of domestic credit to the economy, explained that such level of funding cannot unlock the potential of the non-oil sector and explained that the CBN and Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) put together the conference with the aim of devising strategies to increase the sector’s contribution to economic growth.
“Exports are an essential component in the national income and it has a very important role in supporting the nation’s economy against the backdrop of weak oil prices. It has been observed that while credit to non-oil exports is declining and currently at an average of 0.6 per cent of total domestic loans to the private sector in the last five years, the domestic credit to the economy has been on the rise. The low level of export loans has no doubt also contributed, to a large extent, to the decline in non-oil export revenue receipts from $10.53 billion in 2014 to $4.39 billion in 2015.
“The impact of these developments to on the country’s export growth potentials are quite significant and has become instructive for stakeholders to dialogue towards evolving responsive strategies that will expand resources for exports and its funding programmes on a complimentary basis,” he said.
The CBN governor who was represented by the director, Development Finance Department, CBN, Dr Mudashiru Olaitan, added that the conference would a long way to creating an understanding of the issues constraining the nation’s non-oil exports with a view to proffering practical short and long- term solutions.
He also said that the outcome of the conference would assist the CBN to formulate policies that would enhance the growth of non-oil exports as well as create more jobs for Nigerians.
