The nations foreign reserves have been on a steady rise. In the review week, reserves increased by $415.2 million from $28.3 billion on February 3, 2017 to $28.8 billion on February 10, 2017. The increase is likely the reflection of a sustained crude oil revenue complemented by moderating global crude oil price and increasing domestic production. This should help strengthen the ability of the CBN to foster forex liquidity, and thus help maintain stability in the domestic forex market. If sustained, it should also help improve the value of the naira overtime. Hence, the government should implement proactive and effective policy strategies to, not only, sustain improvements in oil revenue but also boost non-oil revenue.

Recently released inflation rate report by the NBS shows a further decline in consumer price index in December 2017. At 15.37 percent, the CPI was 0.53 percentage points lower than the 15.90 percent recorded in November 2017. The food sub-index decreased to 19.42 percent from 20.21 percent, indicating reduced pressure on food prices in the review period. Core sub-index fell slightly to 12.1 percent from 12.21 percent in the preceding month. Going forward, the ability of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to control inflation in 2018 may be hampered by monetary injections by the government and politicians towards budgetary expenditure and election campaigns, respectively.