The bankers committee, comprising mainly of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Nigerian banks on Saturday resolved to grant naira and foreign exchange (FX) funding facilities to support procurement of raw materials and equipment required to exponentially increase local drug production in Nigeria.
Addressing newsmen in Lagos at the end of the emergency meeting, the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele said the committee dealt with the impact of COVID-19 on the banking system inparticular and the economy in general.
The committee, he said, “has identified a few key local pharmaceutical companies who shall be granted Naira and FX funding facilities to support procurement of raw materials and equipment required to exponentially increase local drug production in Nigeria.
“These include but are not limited to Emzor, Fidson, GSK, May & Baker, Unique Pharma, Swiss Pharma, Neimeth, Sagar, Orange Drugs, Dana Pharma.
The Monetary and Fiscal Authorities in Nigeriahave been holding a series of discussions and roundtables with critical stakeholders to consider several scenarios and optimal responses on the impact of COVID-19 on theGlobal and Nigerian Economy.
Indeed, the CBN has had cause to address the press twice before “and this press conference is the third in the series by the CBN,” Emefiele stated.
Specifically, the committee discussed the significant health and economic crisis caused by the novel Corona virus (COVID-19) which has resulted in escalating worldwide infections, deaths, disruptions in global supply chains, travel restrictions and turmoil in the international financial markets.
It further noted the policy responses across governments and central banks around the world including the CBN.
According to Emefiele, it was resolved that the CBN and banking industry will collaborate at this critical moment — with one coherent strategy to provide confidence to the customers, counter parties, the public and most importantly, put Nigeria first.
He added that the industry has learnt lessons from previous crisis including the 2008 global financial crisis and the oil price slump of 2016, which will be applicable and position the industry to better deal with this crisis.
The CBN Governor stressed that the industry resolved that profit will not be the primary motive at this time. Rather, preserving confidence, financial stability and support for the economy will be the overriding objectives.
“Engagements will be held withcorrespondent banks, trade creditors, trading partners regarding existing LC and trade commitments. The industry is committed to resolving these commitments in a comprehensive and orderly way.
“There will be transparent and open communication with all counterparties,” Emefiele stated.
In view of the significant disruption of the global supply chains, the bankers committee advises Nigerians and companies to begin prioritizing their import needs and focus more on sourcing raw materials and inputs locally.
The bankers committee noted the success of the CBN’s 43 items policy and encouraged it to strengthen it and other measures targeted at export promotion and/or import substitution to position Nigeria as a key global producer and build a self-sufficient economy.
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The Committee further discussed the financial system’s implementation and operationalization of the policy measures earlier announced by the CBN including Additional moratorium of 1 year on
CBN intervention facilities; Interest rate reduction on intervention
facilities from 9 per cent to 5per cent; Creation of N50 billion targeted credit facility for affected households & SMEs.
Others are: Granting Regulatory forbearance to banks to restructure terms of facilities in
affected sectors; Strengthening the LDR policy, which is encouraging significant extra lending from banks; Improving FX supply to the CBN by directing all oil companies (international and domestic) and all related companies (oil service) to sell FX to CBN and no longer NNPC; Activation of the NI .5 trillion InfraCo
Project for building critical infrastructure among others.
and then