National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Dayo Emmanuel (With Agency reports)
For the first time in six years, Egypt’s foreign-exchange reserves have overtaken Nigeria’s, Bloomberg.com has reported.
The North African country, which floated the pound and secured international monetary funding in November, has seen overseas holdings of local-currency bonds soar to $7.5 billion from just $100 million earlier.
In Nigeria, where the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria has tried to manage the local currency, the Naira instead of freeing it, reserves fell 2.3 percent last month. The lesson? Sometimes it’s better to let the market tell you what the rate should be, than the other way around.
Meanwhile, Egypt has revealed plans to cut fuel imports from current 30% to 10% consumption by 2019.
The north African nation is also considering pushing up petroleum production over next two years to actualize plans to reduce fuel imports to 10%.
Now an importing nation consuming 6.8m tonnes of fuel each month, Egypt was once a large exporter but production has since declined.
“The Ministry of Petroleum has put forward a plan to increase the country’s production of Petroleum products and reduce its reliance on imports to 10% of total consumption by 2019,” Oil Minister, Tarek El Molla said through Egyptian newspaper Al-Borsa.
Source: Bloomberg
