The Governor of Central Bank (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has expressed hope that Nigeria could exit recession by the first quarter of 2021.
The Moment reports that the CBN Governor expressed this optimism on Friday while speaking at the 55th Annual Bankers Dinner organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city.
This was the first ever blended bankers dinner where participants joined both physically and virtually, was powered by CBN, all Nigerian Banks and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Commission.
The CBN Governor also projected a GDP growth of 2.0 percent in 2021 at the event which saw him giving an insight into the actions of the apex regulatory body in the present year and an idea of what to expect in the coming year.
According to Emefiele, given the impact of COVID-19 on key economic variables such as crude oil, the fiscal and monetary authorities had taken unprecedented measures to prevent long-term damage to the growth prospects of the economy.
The CBN Governor further noted that the impact of these measures along with the removal of restrictions on movement and resumption of international travel, had led to improvement in key indicators of the economy, as several economic activities returned to positive growth.
His words: “A sectoral assessment of economic activities in the third quarter indicates that the economy witnessed positive growth in key sectors such as Information and Communications Technology, Agriculture, Health, Construction, Finance and Insurance and Public Administration.
“With sustained implementation of our intervention measures, we do expect that the Nigerian economy could emerge from the recession by the first quarter of 2021, due to high frequency data that indicates continued improvements in the non-oil sector of our economy.
“We also expect that growth in 2021 would attain 2.0 percent”, he said.
