CBN warns of relapsing recession if economy is not run on strong policy synergy

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has raised fresh fears of another self-inflicted recession if officials involved in running both the fiscal and monetary policies of the economy fail to ride on a strong synergy in decision making. While stressing that it is only policy coordination that situate economies for growth and development all over the world, CBN boss who made the remark at the opening session of a workshop titled, ‘Sustaining economic growth beyond recession exit’, said “To sustain the recovery from recession, there was a need for robust policy coordination between key aspects of economic policy making”.

“These include fiscal, monetary, exchange and trade policies, which must be targeted at protecting farmers to boost agricultural outputs, support local companies and enhance manufacturing and industrial capacities. Continuing, he noted that the effective coordination of these policies would assist in diversifying the economy away from oil. Emefiele, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Mr. Edward Adamu, made it clear that  that there was a need for policy makers to be vigilant so that the economy would not slide into recession again.

Explaining more on what must be done to ensure that the country should not fall back into another recession, he said, “The first thing we need to do is to remain vigilant. Those of us who have been entrusted with leadership and policy making responsibilities must neither become complacent nor over-confident. We must strive to improve and sustain the same policies that have got us this far. Our import bills may have fallen but out manufacturing and agriculture sectors still have long way to go if we may attain self-sufficiency in those sectors.

“We must not be quick to discard the restrictive measures, which aided our recovery, simply because the metrics have improved.” While arguing that the apex bank will continue to calibrate policies and strategies based on the evolving developments in the economy, he assured that the apex bank will “Remain proactive in ensuring that the welfare of Nigerians is optimised at any point in time. The bank will continue to provide access to much needed credit to sectors with the potential to create jobs on a mass scale”.