The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that the apex bank had paid N81 billion in rebates to Nigerian exporters to support their export-oriented businesses as a monetary policy step towards improving the nation’s foreign exchange earnings.
Emefiele made this disclosure on Tuesday in his keynote address at the 2nd Edition of the RT200 Biannual Non-Oil Export Summit held in Lagos.
According to him, the N81 billion paid so far as rebates is a demonstration of the CBN Board and management’s commitment to boosting production and earnings in the nation’s export value chain.
The Governor explained: “In the last 3 quarters, $4,987 billion have been repatriated into the country from non-oil exporters, which is higher than $4,190 billion repatriated in the whole of 2021; of this sum $1,966 billion qualified for the rebate program but only $1,955 billion was sold at the I&E window.
“CBN has also paid out N81 billion in rebate to hardworking Nigerian exporters in the third quarter of 2022,” Emefiele added.
Speaking further, the apex bank governor pointed out that the success of the RT200 scheme had created a strong premise to make all export products eligible for the rebate and not just limit it to finished and semi-finished products.
He said that there had been calls to make all exporters eligible for the rebate and not just limit it to finished and semi-finished products.
The CBN governor noted that while the monetary authorities saw some justification for this, one of the goals of the RT200 programme is to help quicken the process of industrialization and encourage exporters to earn more from their export business.
Emefiele said that the conference was organized to appraise what had been achieved since the first summit and the result of the collaborative efforts by all stakeholders in the export value chain with a view to identifying areas for improvement.
On the way forward to boost the nation’s export trade, the foremost banker advocated: “We must help our exporters and our economy by adding value to what we produce and export. We are already getting feedback from banks on the interest of exporters to add value to the products they export to allow them to benefit from the programme.
“We are happy that this is happening, and we encourage more exporters to find ways to add value to their export products to benefit from the scheme and get a better deal for their exports.
“We are already getting feedback from banks on the interest by exporters to add value to the products they export to allow them to benefit from the program. We are happy that this is happening, and we encourage more exporters to find ways to add value to their export products so that they can benefit not only from the scheme but get better value for their exports”, Emefiele stressed.
