The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held all rates across board with the headline monetary policy rate (MPR) retained at 27.50 per cent.
This was announced by the central bank governor, Mr Yemi Cardoso, at the press briefing of the monetary policy committee on Thursday.
The pause will see the MPR at 27.50 per cent, a fresh breath for manufacturers and debt holders.
The apex bank retained the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +500/-100 basis points and the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) at 50.00 per cent and Merchant Banks at 16 per cent.
Also, the MPC retained the Liquidity Ratio at 30.00 percent
The CBN Governor stated that all members of the MPC voted unanimously to keep rates steady stating that it was too early to start considering rate cuts despite slowing inflation.
This was expected after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that Nigeria’s headline inflation dropped massively— following a rebasing that saw the base year change to 2024 versus 2009.
The head inflation and food inflation rate dropped to 24.48 per cent and 26.08 per cent in January from 34.80 percent and 39.93 percent in December last year respectively.
The CBN had hiked interest rates by 875 basis points in the last year as Mr Cardoso favoured inflation targeting tools to fix skyrocketing cost of prices.