The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reassured exporters of its commitment in strengthening and expanding foreign exchange (FX) supply into the market. Godwin Emefiele, CBN Governor, made this assurance while speaking at the third edition of the RT200 bi-annual Export Summit in Lagos, on Tuesday.
He said the Bankers’ committee and the CBN are ready to partner with them to achieve their goals. In his words, “you can benefit from the many financial programmes introduced by the CBN through your bank and as such grow your business exponentially.”
“We are ready to break our backs for exporters to achieve this goal and that is the reason we said when we launched this programme that we have about N500 billion available for you as facilities to be able to do whatever you want to do to process your export materials. The disbursement of that facility is sub optimal.” Emefiele said.
He acknowledged that by being responsive to exporters, the country will be able to source export proceeds that help the economy, as well as generate export proceeds that weans Nigeria away from depending on the CBN as its source of forex to meet import needs.
Speaking on CBN RT200 export programme, be noted that $790 million out of the $1.7 billion was sold at the I&E window year-to-date. The program was initiated in February, 2022, with the aim to raise $200 billion in Foreign Exchange (FX) earnings from Non-Oil Proceeds over the next 3-5 years.
He said it had repatriated $1.7 billion into the economy in the first three months of 2023, even as it sets to publish names of companies and individuals that benefited from the RT200 export rebate programme.
Emefiele said the export proceeds repatriation has followed a rising trend since the inception of the RT200 programme, with a 40 percent increase from $3 billion to $5.6 billion in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
According to him “the momentum for 2023 is equally showing strong numbers and impressive prospects.” “The balance of the proceeds remained in the Export domiciliary accounts of exporters” Emefiele said.
Meanwhile, the Apex bank boss said the bank has been patient with shipping lines as well as agents as they are expected to do the right thing.
He noted that in an earlier meeting with shippers, the CBN made it clear that it would place Post No Debit on the accounts of shipping lines and agents that connive with exporters to take products out of the country without proper documentation.
“We have so far not done anything because we feel that our shipping lines will be responsible to do what is right, but if we do not see the kind of cooperation that we expect, I will have to insist that we do what we need to do,” Emefiele said.
Speaking on the transparency of the RT200 beneficiaries, Emefiele said that by next week, CBN would begin public advertisement on the amount and companies that have benefited from the programme, from January to March.