By Emmanuel Uffot
Many Nigerians had heave a sigh of relief when President Bola Tinubu suspended the former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) Godwin Emefiele who was thereafter arrested by the Department of State Services ( DSS).
Prior to the the recent appointment of a new Substantial CBN Governor Mr Olayemi Michael Cardoso, the apex bank through an acting governor had in the past months battle with monetary policies instigated by the federal government to stem inflation and dwindling rate of the Naira at the foreign exchange market.
However the one that has excited many Nigerians and the real and manufacturing sector, is the lifting of ban earlier placed on the importation of 43 items.
The CBN announced this new measure on Thursday October 12,2023 through the Director of Corporate Communications Mr Isa Abdulmumin.
The spokesman stated that the apex bank has lifted the ban placed on the importation of 43 items restricted from accessing foreign exchange. According to a statement titled ‘ CBN restates commitment to boost liquidity in forex market”, he stated that importers of all the 43 items previously restricted by the 2015 circular with reference number, TED/FPC/GEN/01/010 are now allowed to purchase foreign exchange in the Nigerian foreign exchange market’.
The list of the 43 items whose importation ban has been lifted are,
1, Rice
2, Cement
3, Margarine
4, Palm Kennel
5, Palm Oil Products
6, Vegetable Oils
7, Meat and Processed Vegetable Products
8, Poultry and Processed Poultry Products
9, Tinned fish in sauce ( Geisha and Sardine)
10, Coiled rolled steel sheets
11, Roofing sheets
12, Wheel barrows
13, Head pans
14, Metal boxes and containers
15, Enamel ware
16, Steel drums
17, Steel pipes
18, Wire rods
19, Reinforcing bars
20, Wire Mesh
21, Steel nails
22, Security and razor fencing and poles
23, Wood particle boards and panels
24, Plywood boards and panels
25, Wooden doors
26, Toothpicks
27, Glass and glasswares
29, Kitchen Utensils
30, Tableware
31, Tiles- vitrified and ceramic
32, Gas cylinders
33, Wooven fabrics
34, Clothes
35, Plastic and rubber products
36, Polypropylene granules
37, Cellophane wrappers
38, Soap
39, Tomatoes
40, Cosmetics
41, Tomatoes/ Tomatoes paste
42, Bags
43, Processed Vegetable Products.
Explaining the policy, CBN said the idea apart from aiming at boosting availablity of this items in the market, will go a long way in boosting liquidity in the Nigerian foreign exchange market by interventions from time to time as well as ensuring price stability.
The apex bank said it was committed to accelerating efforts to clear the foreign exchange backlog with existing participants and intend to continue dialogue with stakeholders to address the issue. ” CBN has set as one of its goals the attainment of a single forex market. Consultation is ongoing market participants towards achieving this goal”.
It could be recalled that importation of the aforementioned items were banned by former President Muhammadu Buhari. The idea was to boost local production of these products especially rice and cement.
The lifting of the ban on these items has excited many Nigerians especially the importers.
For an average Nigerian who had been craving for the opening of Nigerian border to allow imports, this is a good omen.
But critical stakeholders like manufacturers of most of these products expectedly, may have received this policy with mixed feelings.
They fear as always the their reasoning, that giving a blank cheque to importers to import these items they manufacture here in Nigeria will flood the market with those products and consequently affect their sales. Rightly so, others may align to an extent but for others, they reasoned that the local manufacturers in most cases do not have the capacity to produce the quantity to meet local demands which always result to high prices of these locally produced products.
