Nigeria MPC Keeps Rates Unchanged

Nigeria’s Central Bank has kept the benchmark interest rate at 11 percent, its governor Godwin Emefiele said on Tuesday. Emefiele said the 12 members of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to keep the rate unchanged. The bank also held the cash reserve ratio for commercial banks at 20 percent.

Meanwhile, Razia Khan, Chief Economist for Africa at Standard Chartered Bank has expressed his disappointment at the outcome of the MPC Meeting, he says; Nigeria will find it more difficult to preserve its FX reserves in the absence of FX market flexibility and the greater the spread between the parallel market and the official rate, the greater the perception of official NGN overvaluation.