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By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s new RT200 FX Programme to attract $200 billion in FX repatriation might not be effective enough to boost non-oil exports and would need additional policy improvement with export infrastructure, financing for exporters and others to achieve the desired result.
According to economic experts, the rebate scheme is a tacit devaluation of the Naira to serve as an incentive for non-oil exporters to repatriate their proceeds into the FX market but low aggregate non-oil export earnings is the factor responsible for the low repatriation of non-oil export proceeds into the FX market.
The apex bank had on 25th of February, 2022, released the operating guidelines for the non-oil export proceeds repatriation rebate scheme as introduced in the RT200 FX programme.Precisely, the guideline stipulated that exporters will be paid N65.00 for every $1.00 repatriated and sold at the Investors and Exports Window (IEW) to Authorised Dealing Banks (ADBs) for other third party use, and N35.00 for every $1.00 repatriated and sold at the IEW for own use on eligible transactions only. In addition, the scheme which aims to attain a goal of $200 billion in FX repatriation from non-oil exports over the next three to five years, would rest on five key anchors –non-oil commodities expansion facility, dedicated non-oil export terminal, non-oil FX rebate scheme, value-adding exports facility, and biannual non-oil exports summit.
