Inclusion of rice, poultry products, beef, in forex restricted 41 items has boosted farming —CBN
For the first time in recent weeks after barrage of calls and criticisms on the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) to review the list of 41 items barred from easy access to forex for imports, the bank has come up to defend the stay of the order, noting that the ban has encouraged Nigerians to go into massive farming.
In an interview in Awka, the Anambra State capital during a three-day sensitisation workshop for rice farmers by the CBN, the Acting Director, Corporate Affairs, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor said “Even in families, people adjust when things change. So we came up with a group of 41 items, including eggs, beef, toothpick, rice and so on”.
He argued that “It’s foolhardy for a country to begin to spend scarce foreign exchange to import what it can produce at home, comparatively advantageously”.
“So we decided that if anyone wants to import those things, he can go and source his foreign exchange but for us, we reserve our foreign exchange for critical input that will bring back the production lines in factories that will support the farmer to grow more foods; those are our critical needs and we have done that successfully.”
Explaining on the awareness programme for growing the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, Okoroafor said “the purpose of our journey here is to bring CBN and what it does nearer to the grassroots and our intention is to enable them understand what we do, especially our real sector interventions, and also know how best to benefit from them. We are also here to explain to them some of our policies, especially our foreign exchange policies, the current ones going on, and to make them realise that we have come to a point as a country where we must decide to produce what we eat and eat what we produce.
“That no nation can develop by depending on foreigners for its food needs and that the only way to grow our economy and advance our nation is to ensure that we apply our creative energies in innovation, in creativity to production and that productivity is the root of progress. That the CBN stands ready to provide the financial support by way of loans at 9 per cent interest to all Nigerians especially the creative, enterprising and hard working people of Anambra State. To enable them to produce, add value and even export and make money to better their lives and to bring up their children.
“We have encountered problems where people come and say, ‘we don’t have collateral and banks collect collateral from them’. We have successfully established the National Collateral Registry, which is a register for movable assets. Now, especially people at the lower end can get loans, micro loans by using what they already have, if somebody has a beauty saloon and she has a generator and one dryer, and she wants to acquire an additional dryer, she can register that generator as a movable asset and use it to take a loan. While the loan is running she is using the generator, so your asset, while working for you, is getting you money to expand your business. That is the beauty of the National Collateral Registry,” apex bank’s spokesman said.
