Senate commends CBN’s economic progress, urges continued stability

File photo of the Senate

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The Central Bank of Nigeria on Thursday presented a positive outlook for the country’s economy in the second half of 2025 during a statutory briefing to the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions.

The committee, chaired by Senator Adetokunbo Abiru (Lagos East), commended the apex bank for the economy’s positive trajectory since the start of the year but urged it to sustain the momentum for an even more stable 2026.

CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso told the committee that Nigeria’s real GDP growth had maintained a steady trajectory, with the economy expanding by 3.98 per cent in the third quarter of 2025.

“This is higher than the 3.86 per cent recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2024, though 0.25 percentage point lower than the preceding quarter,” he said.

Cardoso highlighted crop production, ICT, real estate, and the financial and insurance sectors as key contributors to the broad-based growth.

He also drew attention to a sharp decline in inflation, which fell for seven consecutive months to 16.05 per cent in October 2025, down from a peak of 34.6 per cent in November 2024—the lowest in three years.

Food inflation, the largest component of the consumer price basket, also eased to 13.12 per cent in October, down from 21.87 per cent in August.

“This steady disinflation is restoring real purchasing power for households and businesses, and we remain fully committed to pushing inflation down to single-digit levels over the medium term,” Cardoso said.

The governor pointed to the foreign exchange (FX) market as the most visible sign of renewed confidence in the economy.

“The once-substantial gap between official and parallel market rates has shrunk to under 2 per cent, down from over 60 per cent a year ago,” he said.

“Consequently, the average exchange rate of the naira to the US dollar at the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM) strengthened to N1,442.92/US$ as of November 26, 2025, compared with N1,551.08/US$ in the first half of the year.”

Cardoso also reported that Nigeria’s external reserves had rebounded to US$46.7 billion as of November 14—the highest level in nearly seven years—providing about 10.3 months of import cover.

Diaspora remittances surged by 66.7 per cent, rising from about US$200 million per month to around US$600 million per month.

“Another important outcome was the resolution of the US$7 billion verified FX backlog, restoring credibility and confidence in the Nigerian economy,” he said.

Looking ahead, Cardoso assured the committee that the outlook for 2026 remained very positive.

He noted that Nigeria now ranks among Africa’s most advanced digital payments markets, supported by a vibrant fintech ecosystem that has produced eight of the continent’s nine unicorns.

In his opening remarks, Senator Abiru praised the CBN’s monetary policies, saying his committee had observed “remarkable macroeconomic improvements since our last interactive session with the bank in July this year.”

“These positive indicators have not gone unnoticed globally. I commend the Bank and its leadership for the role played in earning the country favourable ratings from Fitch and S&P Global Ratings, reflecting improved investor sentiment, policy credibility, and macroeconomic stability,” he said.

The PUNCH journalist, Adebayo, has over 20 years of experience covering politics, health, metro, entertainment and properties

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