Category: Business

Nigeria’s Economy Records Over $1.5 Billion Inflow – CBN

Northern Elders Oppose Mass Transfer Of CBN Staff To Lagos

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it recorded an inflow of over $1.5 billion into the economy over the past few days.

The Acting Director of the Corporate Communications Department of the apex bank, Sidi Ali, made this known in a statement on Friday.

According to Ali, the CBN said the high inflow indicated that its monetary policy efforts are working positively.

She noted that data available to the bank indicated that the inflow resulted from the bank’s concerted effort to stabilise the foreign exchange market.

Ali said the naira has also continued to record gains in the Autonomous Foreign Exchange market, as it traded at N1,309/$1 as against N1,611/$1 in the second week of March 2024.

She noted that Thursday’s rate signified that the naira was headed in the right direction, assuring that the CBN remained committed to ensuring the stability of the market, and the appropriate pricing of the naira against other major currencies worldwide.

The development comes on the heels of the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announcement of a two-percent increase in its benchmark rate, from 22.75 per cent to 24.75 per cent on March 26, 2024.

Also, the apex bank conducted the Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTBs) auction of N1.64trn on March 27, 2024, at stop rates of 16.24 per cent, 17 per cent, and 21.124 per cent for the 91-day, 182-day, and 364-day tenors, respectively.

The post Nigeria’s Economy Records Over $1.5 Billion Inflow – CBN appeared first on Naija News.

MTN Loses 7.3 Million Subscriptions Over NIN-SIM Linkage

MTN Speaks On Alleged Killing Of Its Employees In Imo

South African multinational corporation and mobile telecommunications provider, MTN, reportedly experienced a significant decline of 7.3 million active subscriptions in January 2024.

Recent industry data indicated that this drop occurred as a result of complying with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s directive to deactivate SIM cards that were not linked with National Identification Numbers (NINs).

Naija News recalls that in December 2023, the NCC instructed all telecommunication operators, including MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile, to implement a full network barring on phone lines without submitted NINs by February 28, 2024.

Subscribers who provided their NINs but were not validated were threatened with complete deactivation.

For unverified NINs with five or more connected lines, the NCC threatened deactivation would take place by March 29, 2024. Similarly, lines with fewer than five connections to an unverified NIN would be deactivated by April 15, 2024.

MTN’s active subscriptions dropped from 87 million in December 2023 to 79.7 million in January, resulting in a loss of approximately 7.3 million subscriptions, as per the most recent NCC data.

In line with the NCC’s directive regarding NIN-SIM linking, MTN announced that it has deactivated 4.2 million connections.

The company stated that it has verified a total of 19 million lines since the NCC implemented a regulation in December 2023 mandating the disconnection of subscriber lines not linked to their NIN.

By February 28, 2024, Naija News understands that 4.3 million lines had been verified, while 4.2 million had been disconnected.

9mobile also experienced a decrease in subscriptions in January this year, with a decline of 135,788 to 13.7 million subscribers.

Despite the ongoing disconnection process, Airtel and Globacom observed slight growth in their monthly subscriber bases. Airtel welcomed 767,887 new customers, increasing from 61.8 million in December of the previous year to 62.6 million in January.

The number of subscribers in Globacom’s database increased by 321,869, reaching a total of 61.9 million in December. This indicates a growth in subscriptions.

However, Nigeria’s overall number of active mobile service subscriptions decreased by over six million in January 2024, totalling 218 million compared to 224.4 million in December 2023.

As a result of this decline in active connections, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants in a given area, also decreased.

In January 2024, the teledensity stood at 100.75, down from 103.66 per cent recorded in December of the previous year.

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Naira To Dollar At N400 Rate Unrealistic – Moghalu

'There Is Real Problem' - Moghalu Reacts To New World Bank Loan, Vehicles For Lawmakers

A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, has criticized the notion that the naira will stabilize at N400 to the dollar.

The political economist deems the notion as unrealistic.

Naija News reports that Moghalu expressed his viewpoint through a series of posts on his X account on Sunday.

He wrote: “Those who want the Naira to be N400 to the $ are living in a dream world. Even discounting for the negative impact of speculative attacks on the value of the Naira, the exchange rate will (and should) reflect its market value in reality, not the artificiality that the Emefiele era central bank sought to maintain to please economic illiterates in political power at the time.

“That artificiality created room for massive arbitrage by speculators which bled the economy. Nigeria does not (yet) have a productive export economy. That’s the heart of the matter.

“And we do not have $100 billion in foreign reserves. So on what basis would the Naira forex rate return to some fantasy land soon? It will also take time to regain or achieve full investor confidence such as we had when we were there (and the rate was N150-165 to the $).

“The sooner we focus on a painstaking creation of value-added manufacturing export economy that earns forex beyond oil in real and significant terms, the better.

“Key to this is the electricity conundrum in which we are at less than 4,000MW of generation for a population of 200 million for decades now. Take power to even 20K megawatts (let’s not talk of 50K for South Africa’s 60 million population or Brazil’s 181K megawatts for a population only slightly larger than Nigeria) and you will see what the Nigerian entrepreneurial spirit is capable of.”

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