Business Briefs
–
NIGERIA will hold a non-deal road show in London, next week to raise funds to finance the 2016 budget. Kemi Adeosun, finance minister and officials from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the debt office will meet investors on Tuesday, June 7, to update the market on government policies. Reuters reported that Standard Chartered Bank is organising the meeting.
Nigeria plans to borrow as much as $10 billion from debt markets with about half of that coming from foreign sources to help fund a budget deficit worsened by the slump in oil prices that has slashed revenues and weakened the naira.
Nigeria is likely to sell a euro bond this year. Nigeria has pushed ahead with some reforms meant to free up cash to invest in badly needed infrastructure, but critics worry about the pace, given the loss of oil revenues and a currency peg that has caused the economy to contract.
In mid-May the government hiked petrol prices by 67 percent to 145 naira, reducing an expensive subsidy scheme that has cost it billions of dollars. It used a rate of 285 naira to the dollar to set the prices, compared with an official rate of 197.
The move prompted the central bank to abandon its 15-month naira peg to the dollar to adopt a flexible currency regime, a policy U-turn designed to boost exports and local manufacturing and to stave off a recession. But the bank has yet to clarify how the new policy announced last week will work, spooking foreign investors long worried about getting caught in the middle of devaluation.
— Jun 13, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags:
