Nigeria’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate at 14% on Tuesday, its governor said.
Governor Godwin Emefiele said two of the eight members who attended the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting had voted to cut the headline rate.
Economists predicted the central bank would keep the main interest rate unchanged.
The central banks of SA and Ghana cut their key rates in the past week as the inflation outlook in the two economies improved.
While price growth in Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous nation, slowed for a fifth consecutive month to 16.1% in June,
it remains well above the government’s 6% to 9% target range, reports said.
The economy of Nigeria, which vies with SA as the biggest on the continent, shrank for a fifth consecutive quarter in the three months through March.
The Opec member-state relies on crude oil sales for about two-thirds of government revenue.
“In consideration of the headwind confronting the domestic economy and the uncertainty in the global environment, the committee decided by a vote of six to two to retain the MPR (monetary policy rate) at 14%,” said Emefiele.
The bank also kept its cash reserve ratios for commercial banks at 22.5%. Dollar shortages have been a hallmark of the recession and the country has at least six exchange rates, including an official rate, a black market rate and one for Muslim pilgrims.
The central bank governor said the bank was heartened by the emerging convergence of a market-determined rate for investors and a retail rate set by legal exchange bureaus
Reuters/Bloomberg