The Central Bank of Nigeria has declared support for agro-industrial entities making efforts to actualize the import substitution industrialisation plan of the Federal Government by investing in local production, processing and hence creating jobs and boosting the economy.
The apex bank said a new forex dispensation prioritising local production and manufacturing was underway to stimulate job creation.
The CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while launching the 100-for-100 Policy for Production and Productivity (PPP).
He said: “The new FX bidding regime will be market-driven and intended to support companies that accord utmost priority for our local production and job creation drive.”
Recall that to actualise the import substitution policy of the government, the apex bank blacklisted over 40 agro-allied products, including live or dead birds (frozen poultry; cocoa butter, powder and cakes and cane or beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose, in solid form containing added flavouring or colouring matter. Others include crude palm oil with an additional levy of 25 to 10 per cent tariff.
From 2015 to 2021, the CBN increased items removed from foreign exchange window from 36 to 50, insisting that whatever the country could produce should not be imported into the country.
On the restriction/ban policy, Emefiele, had said that “The CBN will get even more aggressive to see to it that any or all food items that can be produced in Nigeria and consumed in Nigeria and are currently being imported into Nigeria; that we would go through our records and once we convince ourselves that these products can be produced in Nigeria, we will place them on the FX restriction list.”
A crude palm oil producer and refiner, Ajibola Adebutu, said policies introduced by the CBN had helped to stabilise demand and helps to stimulate backward integration investments in the oil palm subsector.
The mission of the CBN through the PPP initiative, he said, “is to ensure that priority is accorded to companies that display verifiable progress in our imports substitution and job creation drive.”
He added that apex bank “will continue to provide all the needed support, both in naira and dollars, specifically for the importation of plants and equipment to actualise these investments.”
Through the PPP, eligible applicants would submit their applications to their banks, and a notification is submitted on https://100for100ppp.ng, through which applicants could track progress.
The bank explained that eligible entities in agro-industrial sectors would be screened and 100 would be selected to receive funding every 100 days, beginning from November 1, 2021.
The selection of subsequent beneficiaries will be rolled over every 100 days with new sets of 100 companies and details of these companies will be published in the major national dailies.
