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The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria will hold its first meeting today to set the tone for economic activities in next two months.
The need for a policy reaction rose as the Gross Domestic Product report is anticipated to be negative, an affirmation of the country’s sustained economic recession.
The MPC meeting is coming against the backdrop of tightening external market for trade and capital, which is underlined by interest rate hike in United States and the assumption of office by President Donald Trump, whose policy impact is yet to be known.
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Financial experts said the policy makers should begin to prepare minds in making landmark decisions from now till the end of first quarter.
The Executive Director of Corporate Finance, BGL Capital Limited, Femi Ademola, said the best CBN would do tomorrow is to reduce interest rate to spur activities.
To the analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited, this will test the resolve of the CBN to abide by the inflation-targeting thrust it committed to in 2016 and give members the opportunity to take stock of the impacts of its tight policy regime.
Egie Akpata of Union Capital Market Limited said that anything short of policy direction that would liberalise the foreign exchange market would only keep currency speculators active in the market for the next meeting.
Again, Sewe Wusu of Sterling Capital Market Limited, while admitting that there seems to be some level of improvement in the macroeconomic environment, particularly the external sector, with accretion to reserves above $27billon, wants this to reflect in price stability.
