Foreign Exchange Crisis: FGN begins talks with World Bank

The Nigerian Naira has maintained a steady fall against the United States Doller.

The Naira appears to be on a free fall against the USD and surpassed N1,000 to $1 at the parallel market.

Mr Wale Edun, the Nigerian Minister of Finance while speaking assured that the Tinubu lead administration is making plans to proffer solutions to the crisis that has bedevilled the Nigerian foreign exchange.

Mr Wale Edun made this known at a Business lunch meeting he held with some World Bank officials in Abuja. The meeting was on how to tackle the liquidity in the Nigerian foreign exchange market.

The Business lunch meeting was organised to honour him and three other ministers.

Mr Wale Edun, while speaking on the foreign exchange crisis said

“I have just risen from a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee as stipulated by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make sure that there is collaboration, coordination and cooperation. And, as you can imagine, full communication in terms of the economic management of our dear country”.

“And so we went through things like the economic management framework, which would include a lot of consultations, step-by-step with other stakeholders, including the private sector that will serve as one of the key ad hoc committees that we put together and the updated and expanded national development plan”.

“Even earlier, we were meeting with the World Bank. As we know, this is a time of very tight foreign exchange liquidity. So, it must be sought and found wherever”.

“And one of those cheap and viable ways is foreign exchange funding, which virtually comes free. A lot of it has zero interest from the World Bank, a multilateral development institution set up to help developing countries such as ours”.

“And of course, you have to be able to tell them, this is the economic plan. You all know the measures that Mr. President has taken. We have briefly dealt with the issue of subsidy that was draining government revenues. He has briefly dealt with the foreign exchange situation and multiple windows, which was deterring investors”.

“But as we know, there is much to be done. So, this morning’s session (Thursdays) was a way of explaining our plan to attract the cheapest or most available of those funds”.

“So that’s just to spend the time I have with you, explaining myself, communicating and there’s much more of that to be done,”

He further pleaded with Nigerians stating that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is making efforts to tackle the foreign exchange crisis.

He also revealed that the reason the Nigerian Naira has been in a free fall against the United States Dollar is due to the backlog payment of $6.8 Billion that has been long overdue.

This created a scarcity of the USD supply in the Central Bank of Nigeria.