With the Dangote refinery expected to launch its first products in July, the governor of Nigeria’s central bank, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said yesterday that the refinery would be able to sell foreign exchange earnings to banks at a competitive rate.
Emefiele said after the 291st monetary policy committee, mpc, meeting in Abuja that his team would involve alhaji aliko dangote, the refinery’s promoter, to ensure that Nigerians are benefitting from the project, adding that the CBN, the federal government, and the country supported him in setting up the refinery.
The CBN chief hoped that the refinery would reduce the country’s foreign exchange deficit, noting that local refining could save about 20% of the total cost of importing petroleum products, lowering prices in the long run. However, he said it was time to withdraw the fuel subsidy.
Meanwhile, Emefiele revealed that the CBN had given out about N8 trillion in interventions to the private sector in the last five years.
He said: “In the last four to five years, we have done about N8 trillion in interventions to the private sector of the economy. The loans have been granted for 10 years, with a two-year moratorium and at single digit”.