CBN, Bankers’ Committee Agreed to Support Airlines, Media

The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Banker’s Committee on Tuesday agreed to support Nigerian-registered airlines and the media industry with special facilities.

At the bi-monthly virtual meeting of the Bankers’ Committee, Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), urged banks to support airlines in the country, saying that support was critical to their recovery following the negative impact of COVID-19 on the sector.

He said this would enable them to adequately address the new challenges facing the sector and adjust to what seems to be the new normal.

Accordingly, the governor urged the banks to also improve support to the media industry in order to prevent job losses in the sector.

This is coming after the apex banks announced it would stimulate and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 with a combined N1.2 trillion. The Emefiele led institution said N1 trillion would be used to deepen local production through the manufacturing sector while N100 billion would be injected into the health sector to enhance research, produce vaccines and equipped laboratories.

In March, the apex bank launched a N100 billion Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) to deepen support for households and micro, small and medium enterprises impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move is expected to prevent further deterioration and speed up the recovery process in both the aviation sector and the media space.

Also, with all the nation’s key economic data pointing to a falling economy amid high unemployment rate of 27.1 percent or 21.8 million people and an escalating inflation rate of 12.82 percent, the central bank and bankers’ committee needs to act to avert a further decline in economic activities.