By Kingsley Ogunwa InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday at its 257th meeting (fourth this year),retained the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 14 percent.
Apart from the MPR, the MPC also retained the Asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +200/-500bps; Cash Reserves Ratio (CRR) at 22.5 percent and Liquidity Ratio (LR) at 30.0 percent.
This is coming on the heels of developments in the global and domestic economy since its last meeting including which include, headwinds confronting global growth amid tightening monetary stance in the U.S, downward trend in global inflation, volatility in global crude oil market, slower contraction in the domestic economy (GDP contracted by 0.52 percent y/y in Q1-2017).
Other considerations by the Committee are the continued drop in domestic headline inflation rate in June (at 16.10 percent y/y), the still-high food prices, which the it expects to moderate in the third quarter (Q3) and the relative improvement in the forex space, heralding stability of the average naira exchange rate across various segments of the market.
