The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday retained all-controlling monetary policy parameters unchanged.
At the end of the meeting in Abuja, the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele said the committee resolved unanimously to keep the policy rate at 11.5 percent despite the country’s three-year high inflation.
The CBN governor said the asymmetric corridor was retained at +100/-700 basis points around the MPR, while the cash reserve ratio (CRR) was maintained at 27.5 percent and the liquidity ratio at 30 percent.
The MPR is the controlling rate approved by the CBN for commercial banks’ lending activities for the period, while the CRR is the minimum deposit a commercial bank must hold as reserves in its account with the CBN.
With the country’s inflation rate at the all-time high level of 17.33 percent in February 2021, from 16.47 percent in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of the last year grew to 33.3 percent from 27.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
The rising inflation figure is putting the monetary authorities have been under pressure to pursue policies to encourage stability in the system and rein in rising unemployment.
