CBN’ll monitor new players in FX market for dairy imports –Cardoso
By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, has stated that the apex bank will take adequate steps to monitor and regulate new players in the forex market interested in the dairy industry.
He also stated that the CBN will adopt a nuanced approach to intervention rather than a return to direct developmental interventions.
Cardoso stated these while fielding questions from journalists during the just concluded Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting which held in Abuja. Explaining the rationale behind lifting FX restrictions on dairy products and its impact on the local market, Cardoso said that it was important that the CBN’s operations were as open and transparent as possible to attract investments into the market.
He said: “We observe that in this particular case, only six companies are allowed to bring in dairy products and its milk products and its derivatives, only six and we believe that this is only oligopolistic at best and that in any case, we should not constrain anybody that wants to come to the foreign exchange market to purchase foreign exchange from doing so. It is not our responsibility. It is not our job to do that.
“We should leave the market open, and transparent and let those who are in a position to deal in a particular area do so. Certainly, we will not ban them from the foreign exchange market. We will not restrict that market to just six players. We will not do so”, he said.
Cardoso also refuted reports that with the recent distribution of fertilisers to farmers to boost food production, the bank is seeking a return to direct interventions.
“We have also been consistent in saying that we will work with those who we believe have the capacity to successfully intervene in whatever manner they can and that by the way, includes even capacity building. It doesn’t extend to a whole host of different areas. So where we see that that capacity is that the central bank would be happy to partner and that goes similar to what one had just said about the collaboration that we have had with regulatory authorities and also law enforcement authorities.
“The fertilizer that was given out was the residue of an intervention that had been done before we came into office. It was not something that was done directly by us and the options were either to leave them there to rot away, or to give them to those that we believed could distribute and that is exactly what we did with the handing over to the Ministry of Agriculture. In actual fact, the way I see it, is that we have taken those particular merchandise and put it where it rightly belongs”, the CBN Governor said.
