According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Business Expectation Survey carried out in July, the business outlook rose by 16.4 index points month on month. However, the overall Confidence Index for July 2020 remained pessimistic/negative at -7.9 index points considering that the Index in the preceding month was -24.3 points2. The sectors surveyed were agriculture, manufacturing, and the construction sectors with a more disaggregated data showing that businesses that are neither import nor export-oriented were the most pessimist in the review period. In a more forward-looking survey, respondents had a more optimistic outlook for the month of August (33.7 index points). Understandably, as society transitions back to normal, business activities are expected to improve. While the business community will no doubt be adversely affected by the pandemic, the several interventions put in place by the government should be leveraged on to support businesses.
August 17, 2020
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 31)
Related
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 27)
The
Naira strengthened against the dollar in the review week. Specifically, the
Naira appreciated by 2.7 percent to N355/$ (parallel market rate) on June 17, 2016,
following the release of the flexible FOREX policy guidelines by the CBN on
June 15, 2016. The new policy effectively adopts a single market structure
hosted at the autonomous/inter-bank market. The inter-bank trading scheduled to
commence on June 20, 2016 will be market-determined, officially eliminating the
N197/$ peg. To ensure foreign exchange liquidity, primary market dealers have
been introduced while the CBN will participate in the market through periodic interventions.
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 30)
Recent media highlights suggest that there is a prospective decrease in Nigerias budgetary benchmark crude oil production. Precisely, the 1.8 million barrels per day proposed at the Joint OPEC and Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting, is 18.2 percent lower than the budgetary production benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day. This followed OPECs recent review to include Nigeria in the ongoing production cut agreement amid concerns of global oil market oversupply, given the constant production increase from Nigeria over the last few months.