After two years of expansionary monetary policy, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee unanimously voted to raise the benchmark interest rate to 13%.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, revealed this while reading the communique of the year’s third monetary policy committee meeting on Tuesday, May 24th, 2022.
The rate, which had been at 11.5 percent since September 2020 in an effort to help the economy recover from the recession caused by the covid-19, has now been raised by the apex bank as inflation rates have risen above 16 percent.
The CBN’s hawkish move is aimed at lowering the country’s rising inflation rate while still ensuring cautious economic growth.
The Committee’s Decision Highlights
- MPR has increased to 13%.
- CRR was kept at 27.5 percent, with an asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR.
- The Liquidity Ratio was also maintained at 30%.