TheCable

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says its intervention in the agricultural sector has created 2.5 million jobs across the entire value chain.

Adamu Lamatek, the deputy governor for corporate services, was speaking on Tuesday at the ongoing 28th seminar for finance correspondents and business editors in Owerri.

“The CBN increased its lending to the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, through targeted intervention schemes such as the anchor borrowers’ programme, commercial agricultural credit scheme and the real sector support facility.

“In particular, we sought to improve the domestic supply of four commodities (rice, fish, sugar, and wheat), which consume about N1.3 trillion annually in our nation’s import bill.

“Our targeted focus on the agricultural and manufacturing sectors was driven by the vast opportunities for growth in these sectors given our high population. These sectors have the ability to absorb the growing pool of eligible workers in our effort to meet local demand and save critical foreign reserves.

“In all, there is sufficient evidence of significant reductions in our annual imports bill and increased non-oil exports. Our development finance interventions have helped to bolster agricultural production by removing obstacles faced by smallholder farmers.

“So far, the programme has supported more than 1.5m farmers across all the 36 States. It has also supported the creation of over 2.5m jobs across the agricultural value chain.”

Speaking further, Lamatek said the apex bank had to adopt unconventional means to achieve these results.

“You are no doubt aware that the Central Bank of Nigeria has transcended her core mandate of maintaining monetary, price and financial system stability, to undertake developmental initiatives with a view to spurring economic growth and job creation.

“Though we adopted unconventional or heterodox monetary policies, they were, however, well thought through and have been yielding significant gains for the Nigerian economy.

“These unconventional monetary policy initiatives have been premised on ensuring credit delivery to critical sectors of the economy. The bank is also creating the necessary eco-system to inculcate a better credit culture among Nigerians.”

He said the bank’s efforts with development finance has helped accelerate the actualization of the federal government’s economic diversification programme.