Nigeria to exit recession soon –W’Bank

The World Bank Group, yesterday, hinted Nigeria will soon recover from its current economic recession. Mrs. Eme Essien-Lore, Country Manager in Nigeria, International Finance Corporation, a member of the Group, who made the observation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday, noted that there were several indications to show that the country’s economy was beginning to rebound after several months of decline.
She stated: “In our perspective and with the numbers that we have seen coming from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nigeria’s economy has recorded about one per cent real growth.
“That is a bit lower than government’s expectation, which is about 2.2 per cent growth for 2017. It is a bit modest, but we certainly expect that the economy of Nigeria will rebound and recover from last year’s recession,” she said.

Essien-Lore commended the Federal Government’s new economic plan, but said that there was need to set priorities for its implementation up to 2020.
On government ERGP, she said the plan is very comprehensive, ambitious and thoughtful and that the World Bank had been consulting with the Nigerian government on the plan, adding that the bank was happy that it had been published.
“Now we can sit down and look at it to see how we will align our objectives around what the government wants to do.”
Essien-Lore said the plan was an opportunity to look at the priorities and what the World Bank could do for the Nigerian government as “it comes up with its development agenda. The plan is for 2017 to 2020; it is a relatively short period, but we need to know what the priorities are and collectively work with government on how to achieve them,” she said.
Meanwhile, the naira, on Thursday, consolidated its gains against the dollar at the parallel market.
The Nigerian currency gained two points to exchange at N455 to a dollar, from N457 it posted on Wednesday, while the pound sterling and the euro traded at N550 and N480, respectively.
At the Bureau De Change (BDC) window, the naira traded at N400 to a dollar, while the pound sterling and the euro closed at N550 and N487, respectively. Trading at the interbank segment of the market saw the naira closing at N306.75 to a dollar.
Currency traders said that the boost in liquidity by the CBN had enabled the naira to sustain its gain against the dollar at the forex market.





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