The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has announced that the country now records approximately $2.35 billion in net inflows into the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) foreign reserves.
Edun made this statement while speaking at the Access Bank annual cooperate forum of 2024 in Lagos.
The Minister said the increase in foreign reserves has contributed significantly to the stability of the naira in the foreign exchange market.
He noted that this increase has persisted over the past seven months of 2024.
“We have relative currency stability. And of course, the all-important margin of the rates. We’ve seen a gradual elimination of multiple exchange rate.
“We also have foreign exchange liquidity. The gross reserves are up. There have been a net inflow in the first seven months of this year of about $2.35 billion every month.
“On the fiscal side as well, government revenues are growing and the key to government revenue is not so much that government has revenue to compete with the private sector.
“It’s the fundamentals, the social and the key infrastructure spending. The social safety net spending. And historically, our figures are low. Our tax to GDP ratio is as low as 10%. Our revenue to GDP is also around 15%,” Edun said.
The minister also emphasised that the government is working to increase crude oil production as a buffer for the fiscal revenues of the country.
Edun said the country is on track to produce the targeted 2 million crude oil barrels per day (bpd) before the end of 2024.
In addition, he said the government is implementing policies to diversify its exports, particularly in the service sector.
“There is a commitment to ramp up oil production to 2 million bpd before the end of the year.
“In addition, our exports need to be significantly diversified and an important area we need to look at is the services. We have the demographics as well as the relatively skilled population which means we can export our services,” Edun added.