MPC May Cut Interest Rates Before July

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee may start cutting interest rates in the first half of the year as inflation eases, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has said. Once inflation gets to low double digits “and high single digit happens, then it should be easy for the MPC to begin to look at easing,”

Emefiele said on Wednesday in an interview at his office in Abuja, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. I want to think that between the end of the first and second quarter, we should begin to see easing,” he added. While inflation slowed to a 20-month low of 15.4 per cent in December, it’s still above the CBN’s six per cent to nine per cent target band.

The MPC didn’t meet as scheduled this week and the central bank’s key rate remained at 14 per cent, where it’s been since July 2016. The MPC has been trying to balance bringing down inflation and boosting an economy that contracted in 2016.

Photo Caption: CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele