The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso on Thursday, January 30, 2025, hosted the Monetary Policy Forum 2025, featuring fiscal authorities, legislative, private sector, development partners, subject-matter experts, and scholars with the theme: “Managing the Disinflation Process”.
At the forum, CBN Governor, Cardoso reiterated that the goal of the CBN is to ensure that monetary policy remains forward-looking, adaptive, and resilient.
In addressing our economic challenges, collaboration is key: “Managing disinflation amidst persistent shocks requires not only robust policies but also coordination between fiscal and monetary authorities to anchor expectations and maintain investor confidence.” – Cardoso
“Our focus must remain on price stability, the planned transition to an inflation-targeting framework, and strategies to restore purchasing power and ease economic hardship.” – Cardoso.
The CBN is continuing its disciplined approach to monetary policy, aimed at curbing inflation and stabilizing the ectonomy.
These actions have yielded measurable progress: relative stability in the FX market, narrowing exchange rate disparities, and a rise in external reserves to over $40 billion as of December 2024.
The CBN also focused on strengthening the banking sector, introducing new minimum capital requirements for banks (effective March 2026) to ensure resilience and position Nigeria’s banking industry for a $1T economy.
This week, the CBN launched the Nigeria Foreign Exchange Code, marking a decisive step forward for integrity, fairness, transparency and efficiency in our FX market.
Built on six core principles, it represents a binding commitment from the financial community to rebuild trust and inspire confidence.
Financial inclusion also remains a priority. The Women Entrepreneurs Finance (We-FI) initiative under the National Financial Inclusion Strategy is bridging the gender gap, ensuring more women have access to financial services and digital tools.
Remittances through IMTOs rose 79.4% to US$4.18 billion in the first three quarters of 2024, demonstrating the positive impact of FX reforms. Additionally,the CBN lifted the 2015 restriction barring 41 items from accessing FX at the official market to enhance trade and investment.
These reforms and developments reflect the Bank’s commitment to creating an enabling environment for inclusive economic development. However, achieving macroeconomic stability requires sustained vigilance and a proactive monetary policy stance.
“As we shift from unorthodox to orthodox monetary policy, the CBN remains committed to restoring confidence, strengthening policy credibility, and staying focused on its core mandate of price stability.” – Cardoso