• CBN’s Forex Market Intervention Improving Business Climate

The continued intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria in the nation’s foreign exchange market is gradually enhancing the country’s business climate, the Managing Director, Premier Standard Industrial Limited, Mr. Gbolahan Adenuga, has said.

Adenuga noted that the greatest challenge that faced the business environment last year and the earlier part of this year was forex scarcity, adding that the situation almost crippled some firms.

He observed that the creation of the Investors and Exporters FX Window by the CBN had enhanced the inflow of forex into the country.

This, he said, had improved the country’s business climate.

The Premier Standard MD, however, urged the central bank to do more, describing the injection of dollars into the market as a good development.

Adenuga said, “The situation is abating at the moment; it’s no longer scarce as it was. This year is a tale of two halves. We’ve had the first quarter which was very tough, the spillover of 2016 where there was scarcity of dollar from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“But since the new policy was introduced in April, where the CBN opened the Investors and Exporters window, things seem to have improved a lot with the inflow of forex. And of course, the CBN has been very active releasing forex into the market on weekly basis.”

According to Adenuga, the government must not pay lip service to the issue of diversifying the economy because there is a need to develop alternative sources of forex earnings for the country.

Premier Standard, which was established over 20 years ago, is an importer of animal feeds.

The CEO said with banks offering between 15 and 30 days forward in accessing forex, there had been a marked improvement compared with 2016.

He however, said the importers and business organisations would like to see a situation where it could even be lesser than 15 days.

The Premier Standard boss also urged the Federal Government to take the issue of economic diversification, particularly agriculture and mining very seriously in the light of economic realities.