Business
By Benprince Ezeh
THE security situation in many parts of the country has worsened the uptick of food inflation in the country, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, has said.
Emefiele told journalists after the two-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN in Abuja on March 23 that there were concerns that the continued uptick in inflationary pressure for the eighteenth-consecutive month, as headline inflation (year-on-year) continued on an upward trend, to 17.33 percent at end-February 2021 from 16.47 percent in January 2021.
“This increase continued to be attributed to the increase in both the food and core components of inflation which rose to 21.79 and 12.38 percent in February 2021, respectively, from 20.57 and 11.85 percent in January 2021.
“This persisting uptick in food inflation, however, was the major driving factor to the uptick in headline inflation,” he stated.
According to them, this was due to the worsening security situation in many parts of the country, particularly, the food-producing areas, where farmers face frequent attacks by herdsmen and bandits in their farms.
“While the Bank is intervening significantly in the agricultural sector, the rising insecurity in some food-producing areas, is limiting the expected outcomes in terms of supply to the market, thus contributing to the rise in food prices,” the communique reads.
Speaking on Real Gross Domestic Product, GDP, Emefiele noted that the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, recorded a growth rate of 0.11 percent (year-on-year) in the fourth quarter of 2020, in contrast to -3.62 percent in Q3 2020 and 2.55 percent in the corresponding period of 2019.
He noted that the Q4 2020 performance was a sharp rebound in contrast to the two previous quarters of negative growth (-3.62 percent in the third quarter and -6.10 percent in the second quarter).
“The improved performance was driven by the non-oil sector, which grew by 1.69 percent in Q4 2020 from -2.51 and -6.05 percent in Q3 and Q2 2020, respectively. The major drivers were Quarrying and Other Minerals, which grew by 48.42 percent and the ICT subsector, which grew by 17.64 percent.
“Real Gross Domestic Product, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, recorded a growth rate of 0.11 percent (year-on-year) in the fourth quarter of 2020, in contrast to -3.62 percent in Q3 2020 and 2.55 per cent in the corresponding period of 2019,” he said.
According to him, the improved performance was driven by the non-oil sector, which grew by 1.69 percent in Q4 2020 from -2.51 and -6.05 percent in Q3 and Q2 2020, respectively.
“The major drivers were quarrying and other minerals, which grew by 48.42 percent and the ICT subsector, which grew by 17.64 percent,” he stated.
– Mar. 25, 2021 @ 16:40 GMT |
Tags: Insecurity affects food inflation - CBN
