CBN Increases Interest Rate

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the increase of the interest rate to 13.5 per cent for the first time in years.

Naija News reports that the increase was made known by the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday.

He made the announcement while addressing newsmen after Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.

The interest rate was increased from 11.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent.

On the raise, Emefiele said the MPC is suspicious there might be an aggressive accretion of inflation.

He said to prevent the looming inflation the MPC had to increase the monetary policy rate by 150 basis points.

Meanwhile, CBN retained the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +100 /-700 basis points, Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 27.4 %, and Liquidity Ratio (LR) at 30%.