Stakeholders urge FG to support productive sector with FX
Financial stakeholders have urged the Federal Government to enhance productive sector support in order to boost output and check inflationary pressure.
They disclosed this in separate interviews on Tuesday in Lagos.
They said that ensuring more support to local manufacturers would spur economic growth and curb inflation.
The founder, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr. Sunny Nwosu, said the Federal Government should tackle inflation by ensuring availability of foreign exchange to the productive sector.
“The apex bank should endeavour to give quoted companies adequate volume of foreign exchange and in good time for their transactions.
“As this will enable them to produce at optimal levels and substitute imported goods locally,” he said.
He noted the Federal Government should continue to address the various headwinds in the electricity sector so as to reduce cost of production.
President, Standard Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Anono said inflation rate would reduce if raw materials for productions were sourced locally.
“Most of the raw materials used in producing are imported, particularly in this tough time of the COVID- 19 era.
“Accessing them have been quite challenging and exorbitant for most organisations,” Anono said.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Bee Institute, Mr. Bidemi Ojelewe, said the government should resolve the insecurity in the country so as not to impede food supplies.
“The farmers and herders crises in some parts of the country are partially responsible for the insufficient farm produce.
“Food produce is one of the major factors that drives the spike in inflation rate,” Ojelewe said
The National Bureau of Statistics says the consumer price index which measures inflation (rate of change in the increase in prices) increased by 17.75 per cent (year-on-year) in June.
This is said to be 0.18 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in May (17.93) per cent.
This implies that prices continued to rise in June but at a slightly slower rate than it did in May.
